Home for Christmas
by William Easley
Summary: Christmas, 2016: The Mystery Twins drive up to spend a few precious days with friends and loved ones. No doubt there will be a mystery or two . . . and some discreet but distinctly warm Wendip will flow like eggnog.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you.

* * *

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 2016)**

* * *

**1**

"One of these days, and it's not far off," said Wanda Pines, "I'll see you two walk out the door and after that, when you come back, it'll just be for a visit."

"One of these days," Dipper agreed, hugging her. "But not quite yet."

That year Christmas fell on a Sunday—not the best arrangement, because that meant he and Mabel had only seven days before school resumed on January 2. Mabel complained about that—"Don't they know that we need one day of recuperation after New Year's Day?"

But it couldn't be helped. Alex fretted about the kids making the long drive all by themselves, but Wendy had assured him there'd been very little snow, the roads were clear, and if Helen Wheels had enough antifreeze, they'd be OK.

So on Christmas Day itself, with a tank full of gas and enough antifreeze to protect their car down to negative twenty-five degrees, Dipper and Mabel gave Tripper the dog a last pat, said goodbye to Mom and Dad, and set out an hour after lunch, expecting to arrive in the Falls some time around ten that night. Mabel took the first two-hour shift, and from then on they alternated.

They'd found a little bit of a shortcut—previously, they had driven up either to Eugene or to Portland and then had turned east, but by getting off the Five in Weed, they could cut the trip down to between eight and nine hours if they did it with a minimum of stops.

Still a long stretch, but—"We're young, full of pep, and wide-awake!" Mabel pronounced. "And traffic on Christmas and New Year's Days won't be heavy."

Mabel even insisted they could do the jaunt on one tank of gas, but Dipper knew that was mathematically impossible. Even gassed up so much that he worried about a vapor lock, the Carino had a range of roughly 325 miles, so he said firmly, "We're going to stop to refuel in Weed. I've checked, and there are five stations just off the freeway that will be open—"

"You have no sense of adventure!" Mabel told him as she took the ramp to I-5 and, eventually, to the town of Weed, California.

It was, approximately, two hundred and eighty miles and well over four hours to that point. Mabel took a little more than a two-hour shift, so Dipper was at the wheel as they got close to Weed. As always, Mabel laughed at the freeway sign for Black Butte, and not far beyond that, Dipper pulled into a Pacific Star station.

It was about fifteen degrees colder there than it had been in Piedmont, where the high had been 52, and it was uncomfortably breezy. Dipper wore Wendy's fur trapper's hat and his letter jacket, but he shivered as he pumped the gas. Maybe Oregon had the right idea, he thought—there a station attendant had to pump the gas. It was easier to swipe the gas card that Alex had given them as a Christmas present—both he and Mabel had one—but, man, when it was cold, gassing up was uncomfortable!

He hung up the pump, tore off the receipt—for Dad—and got into the passenger seat. Mabel was sitting behind the wheel making _vroom, vroom_ noises. As Dipper buckled up, Mabel said, "Pilot to co-pilot. Did you replace the gas cap?"

"Yes," Dipper said.

"Did you close the gas hatch?"

"Yes!"

"Did you remember that present that you're giving Wendy? The one that was on the mission table?"

"Ye—oh, my gosh, did I?"

"Nope," Mabel said with a chuckle as she started the engine. "That's why you're lucky you got me watching your back, Brobro! I put it in the bag of snacks in the back seat."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Because I intend to bring it up constantly!"

Northeast, and then due north into Oregon, and already the daylight was fading. By the time they crossed the border, full dusk had set in, and it was still another three and a half hours to Gravity Falls.

"We're making good time," Dipper said as they traded places again in Sand Creek. "Not even eight yet. We should be in Gravity Falls by ten-thirty at the latest, unless you want to stop for dinner."

"Are you freaking kidding me, Brobro?" Mabel demanded. "Our vacay up there's short enough already! Full steam ahead! Pedal to the metal! No time to eat!"

"Who are you, and what have you done to Mabel?" Dipper asked.

Mabel, who had reached for the goodie bag and was munching a sandwich, didn't bother to reply.

Driving through the dark, Dipper started to get a little sleepy as they neared the Valley, but Mabel poured him a lukewarm cup of coffee and he sipped from it for the last twenty miles or so. It was definitely cold now—way below freezing, and he had both front and rear defrosters going full blast.

Though the roads were clear and dry, a shallow snowpack lay on the ground, dim under a moonless sky. At last, Dipper made the turn and passed under the metal sign frame that had replaced the old mine-train trestle.

"The Pines have entered the Valley!" Mabel announced. "Hey, let's not disturb Grunkle Ford and Graunty Lorena tonight. I'll text and let them know we're going straight on up to the Shack, and we'll see them tomorrow."

"Deal," Dipper said.

He drove through the town—Christmas lights gleamed everywhere, and when the water tower came in sight, he said, "Hey! Look at that!"

This year the town had strung crisscrossing Christmas lights up the legs and all the way to the top of the tower. From a distance, it looked like a gigantic Christmas tree.

"Mabel like!"

"Me, too."

His heart was thumping a little faster than normal when he turned on the road leading to the Shack. The driveway still had patches of snow in it—more like ice, because the temperature was not far above zero!—and the tires spun at one point, but he kept control.

Dan or someone must have snowplowed the Shack parking lot, enough for a few cars, anyway, because mounds of crusted snow had been shoved to the edges. Dipper parked next to Wendy's classic Dodge Dart, and he saw the door of the Shack open and his fiancée framed against golden light.

He and Mabel piled out. Without bothering with their luggage, they rushed up and Wendy hugged both of them. "You guys! You made it and it's still Christmas! So Merry Christmas, Mystery Twins!"

"Merry Christmas, Wendy!" Dipper said, hugging her.

"Gah, it's freezing!" Mabel said.

"Warm and toasty inside." Wendy led them to the parlor, where a fire crackled, and then brought out hot cocoa and cookies, which Mabel fell upon like Sherman attacking Atlanta.

Dipper waited until he'd kissed Wendy before taking a cup. "I'm going to want to eat a sandwich before going to bed," he said. "If Mabel left any."

Mabel, her mouth full of pecan sandies, said, "You are out of luck."

"Never mind," Wendy told him. "I got bread and sandwich fixin's, a pot of chili I can heat up, and I'll take care of you, Dip. Hey, where's your cold-weather gear?"

"In the car," Dipper told her. "We'll get it out after we warm up a little. What's the temperature outside?"

"Last time I looked at the thermometer, nine degrees," she said. "High today was thirty. Big change, I bet!"

"Yeah, no kidding. It's so good to see you," Dipper said. "I think your hair's finally back to normal."

"Well, yeah, I told you it grows fast. I guess you two need to crash pretty soon. Long drive."

"Well, we are tired," Mabel admitted. "So—one more mug and then we'll go get our suitcases and winter coats and—prezzies!"

"I've got a couple little things for you guys," Wendy said, ruffling Dipper's hair. "I hope you didn't go overboard on me."

"Not really," Dipper said. "Some stuff we thought you'd like. We can leave our presents for Stan and Ford and Sheila and Lorena in the car for tonight. There's nothing that might freeze."

"Let's go get our stuff in a minute," said Mabel, standing with her back to the fire. "And then somebody said something about chili? Anyway, I'm thinking about tonight's arrangements. I'll take the guest room, and you two can have the attic."

"Um—" Dipper said.

"Hey, there are two beds up there!" Mabel said. "One for each of you. Or whatever. So—Merry Christmas, you two!"

"Thanks, Mabes," Wendy said.

"You're welcome. Now let's brave the cold, drag our stuff in, and eat us some chili!"

And Dipper, though very happy, just shrugged, smiled, and nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 2016)**

* * *

**2**

After the bowls of Wendy's special chili—made not with ground beef, but with tender sirloin cut in half-inch cubes, with a deep brown spicy, savory sauce and, as Manly Dan always insisted, "No damn beans!"—a satisfied Mabel and Dipper helped wash up and then they all sat on the floor by the fireplace and exchanged the presents.

"Oh, Mabes!" Wendy said, modeling the sweater—her favorite shade of green, with the Mystery Shack itself appliquéd on the front, its roof white with snow, its eaves hung with icicles, each window bright with light. "This is beautiful!'

And she loved Dipper's gift, too—a compact but sophisticated camera, rugged and versatile, with a 5x zoom plus a 20x digital zoom. "It's got a real wide range of aperture, good for bright sunlight and even pretty dark twilight, without a flash. You can take better pictures and movies with that than with your phone," he said. "And it's small enough to fit in a pocket."

"This is fantastic," she said. "Now when I go out camping, I can finally take good clear photos of the strange critters I come across."

Wendy had given Mabel a Knitty Kitty, a case about as big as a fisherman's kit, but full of all the tools a knitter or embroiderer might need. "This is top of the line stuff!" Mabel said. "Now I can toss some of my old plastic ones. Thanks!"

Dipper received a special-edition DVD, _A Ghost Harasser's Christmas. _And on the inside, there was a program book—and both the stars of the show, Jasyn Torque and Craig Grantley, had signed the cover in silver ink, with an inscription: _To fellow ghost chaser, Dipper Pines—Keep 'em on the run!_

"Wow," Dipper said. "First, I've never seen this. It ran, like, once, maybe ten years ago and was never repeated! Second, this DVD's been out of print forever, and I couldn't even find one on WheeBay. And last, you somehow got them to sign it?"

"Yeah, dude!" Wendy said. "Check it out, they showed up to hunt for ghosts in the Shack! They shot here for about three days just before we closed down for the season. The show's coming back!"

"What? When?" Dipper asked, feeling like a ten-year-old.

"Beginning next summer, they said. Only not on TV, on Webflix!"

"No! Freaking! Way!"

"Way, dude!" Wendy said. "They've been off the air for three years now, but their fans wanted them back so bad, they made the deal with Webflix."

Dipper gasped. "Can't breathe! Mouth not right words making!"

"Calm down!" Mabel said. "Inhale. Hold it. Hold it. Exhale. Now talk!"

Dipper managed that: "I can't believe I'm so excited! I mean, it was like my favorite show, even though they never found anything!"

"Didn't here, either, man," Wendy said. "But they interviewed Stan, who told them some great stories, and Soos, who really believes, you know, and me, and I talked you up—this great young guy who's following in their footsteps. They had about a dozen of these limited-edition DVDs left, and I scored one for you. Hey, where is Burbank?"

Dipper gripped the DVD case so hard his hands shook. "Thank you so much, I should have bought you a better—what? Burbank? Uh, down near LA, I think. Why?"

"'Cause they're adding a live-audience bit to each episode. They'll record that in a Burbank studio, and they'll show the audience the episode footage, then let the audience ask questions and react and all. So what are you doing on April 21st and 22nd next year?"

"I . . . don't know!" Dipper said. "Don't tell me there's more?"

"Got tickets for you, me, and Mabel to be in the studio audience for the recording of the studio part of the Mystery Shack show!" Wendy said, producing some colorful cardboard rectangles. "Got an extra one for Teek, too, but he has to see if he can make it. I checked, and Piedmont High's spring break runs from the fifteenth through the twenty-third. Trouble is, Gravity Falls's break is the week before, so Teek would have to take at least one Friday off—the taping's on a Friday and Saturday—"

"Teek will be there!" Mabel said. "I'll call him right now—no, it's eleven-thirty. I'll drive over—no, that might scare his parents. I'll text him! Dipper! We'll fly him down! Do you hear me? We'll fly him down! On an airplane! Do you hear?"

"Yes, yes, we'll fly him down!" Dipper agreed. The two of them could afford the price of at least a round-trip coach ticket.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Mabel hugged Dipper, then Wendy, then herself. "Oh! Eleven-thirty-three! Don't move!"

She thundered up to the attic, spent a couple of minutes loudly rummaging, and then clattered down with Dipper's old acoustic guitar in its case. She thrust it at her brother. "It's Christmas for another twenty-five minutes, Broseph! Don't go all shy on me now. Wendy, you have to listen to his new song!"

"I'd love to," Wendy said.

Dipper made a resigned face, took the guitar out, and tuned it. "It's not very good," he warned.

"Dipper!" Mabel barked. "Don't! Be! Difficult! And don't tell us how bad it is. Just play. I want Wendy to hear this 'cause I really like it."

Sitting in front of the fire, Dipper fiddled with the tuning—his acoustic was not a premium instrument, and he really needed to replace the pegs—but at last he got the notes true.

He strummed the introductory chords and Mabel warned, "We're gonna sing, too, Dip!"

"I don't have a very good—"

"Nobody cares! You take the baritone, I'll do soprano. Go ahead. Play!"

Dipper went into the tune and he and Mabel harmonized their way through it:

* * *

All the Valley lies sleeping

Beneath a blanket of white,

A bright silver moon is gleaming,

On a still, cold, star-shimmering night.

Across the hills as we're dreaming,

Drift gentle and musical calls,

An old snowy owl is saying,

It's Christmas in Gravity Falls.

On our hearth a Yule log is burning,

And we sit warm in its light.

Outside not a Gnome is stirring,

In their caves Manotaurs all sleep tight.

The world, like a drowsy cat's purring,

Peace rules in the Shack's festive halls,

No mystery needs to be pondered,

On Christmas in Gravity Falls!

For miles all around, deep snow on the ground,

The kind that's as soft as a dove.

There's hardly a sound in this world we have found,

Though glory beams down from the sky—

Peace up above, for two people in love,

Let's celebrate, just you and I.

Here let us sit with our loved ones

On this peaceful and wonderful night,

The pine tree twinkles with colors,

The old Shack is buttoned up right.

We have friends and family and lovers,

Within these old comforting walls,

So let's all treasure this moment,

Our Christmas in Gravity Falls,

Bright Christmas in Gravity Falls.

* * *

Dipper wound up with three descending, lingering chords. "I wish it was better—"

"I love it," Wendy said, her green eyes shining.

He smiled at her. "It could be better—"

"Don't spoil this, Dip," Mabel said softly. "Put down the guitar. Kiss the girl. Wish her Merry Christmas."

And in the order Mabel suggested, that is just what he did.


	3. Chapter 3

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 26, 2016)**

* * *

**3**

As Dipper and Wendy went up the stairs to the attic, a distant sound made him pause with his hand on the rail. "Listen."

Wendy put her hand on his. _What is it, Dip?_

—_The bells._

_Oh, yeah, I hear them now._

The faint, faraway chimes played one verse of "Silent Night" and then themselves fell silent.

—_When were those put in?_

_Don't know. I never heard them before._

—_They tore the chimes in the City Hall clock out years ago._

_Yeah, Dad's told me about that._

—_I don't know of a church in town that has chimes, do you?_

_No, none close enough to hear. They were pretty, though. Nice sound._

—_I wonder where they came from._

_Gravity falls mystery to solve, I guess._

But not a threatening or scary one, so they went on up to the attic. Heat rose in the Shack, and with the bedroom door to the landing open, Dipper's room normally was the warmest one in the place. However, the Shack's furnace was fighting zero-degree weather, so the air upstairs held a chill.

Dipper paused to look out over the landscape from the bay window on the landing—not much to see, except the dim glimmer of snow and the jagged line of icicles hanging from the eaves of the flat roof.

"It'd be cold to go up there for roof time tonight," Dipper said. Right above their heads was Wendy's old favorite goofing-off location. "Jumped on any pine trees lately?"

She laughed. "Matter of fact, I did that last fall. I'd gone up to change a bulb in the sign light, and instead of going back down the ladder, I got a wild hair and rode the pines down. I'm not too old for that!"

"I thought you were so cool that time," he murmured. He took her hand. —_And I still do._

The bedroom held the dry chill—it was probably around sixty degrees in there. Cool enough for Dipper to break out blanket and quilts. "Uh," he said, "There's two quilts but just the one blanket. You can have it and I'll make do with a quilt."

"Don't be silly, Dip," Wendy said, taking them from him and preparing his bed. "We'll be warmer under the blanket and two quilts."

"Are you sure?" Dipper asked her.

She held up her pinky, and he locked his with it. _Mental make-out session, no full-contact home-run stuff!_

—_I'll try to live with that._

They got under the cover fast and lay pressed against each other. It wasn't a home-run night—their promise to each other prevented that—but it was, let us say, a satisfactory one, each giving and each receiving the warmth.

* * *

Of all the ways to wake up in the morning, the pleasantest one is to be lying on your back and having your lover lying partially atop you, bare skin to bare skin, and soft lips on yours. Period. No questions allowed.

"Hey," Dipper said, putting his arms around Wendy and caressing her back.

"Hey, yourself," she murmured, kissing him again. "Wasn't exactly the wedding night, but it was a good dry run."

"So to speak," Dipper said. He rolled so they lay side by side, pressed together. "You know, they say practice makes perfect."

They practiced once more, slowly and sweetly. "Mmm," Wendy purred. "Let's just stay here all day."

"Can't," Dipper said regretfully. "We have to go see Ford and Stan this morning."

"Oh, shoot." She trapped him with her long legs. "Give me a real hot kiss and I'll let you up."

Lips and tongues were involved. And then Mabel blasted in through the door. "Good morning, you _tourtereaux amoureux! _I turned the heat up and got the fire going. Any time you want to come down for breakfast, that's fine with me."

"Mabel!" Dipper said, checking to make sure the covers actually did cover everything. "Haven't you ever heard about knocking?"

"Nope. What's that? Oh, I get it. You two need some privacy!" Mabel stooped and started picking up scattered garments. "I'll just tidy up and put these in the wash—"

"Go ahead," Wendy said. "We can come down wrapped in blankets."

"Ooh, a no-jammy whammy!" Mabel squealed. "So is Dipper a man yet?"

"Not in the way you mean," Dipper said testily. "We're still holding out for after we get married."

"You must have a will of steel," Mabel said, straightening out the clothes and hanging them over a chair.

"Titanium," Wendy and Dipper said together.

"That was weird," Mabel told them. "Your voodoo telepathy?"

"Oh, yeah," Wendy said, turning under the covers so Dipper was spooning her. "It works when we touch skin to skin."

—_Oh, my God, let's get her out of here!_

Wendy surreptitiously wriggled a little. _You like this, huh?_

—_Love it but can't stand it!_

"OK, Mabes," Wendy said. "Go out, close the door, and I'll know if you're trying to peek through the keyhole. When we hear you go downstairs, we'll get ready for breakfast."

"You're no fun," Mabel complained, but she left, pointedly closed, but did not slam, the door, and they heard her go downstairs.

Wendy swung out of bed. "Brr! Like forty degrees in here."

Dipper lay on his side, still covered, and watched her get dressed. "I love you," he said.

She grinned, bent over, her hair swinging over his shoulder, and kissed him. _I know, dude. We'll do something about that again tonight, maybe!_

—_I'm starting to wonder if I'll even survive when we actually have our wedding night._

_Yeah, man, it's a real danger, but what a way to go! Come on, now. Roll your butt out of bed and let's go make breakfast._

Turnabout and fair play and all that stuff, eh, what? With sleepy green eyes, Wendy appreciatively watched Dipper get dressed. "You got a nice bod, Dip. I like how your shoulders have got so broad, your chest is ripped but not all that hairy, and running's done great things for your legs and—

"Butt, I know," he said wearily as he pulled up his jeans. "Eloise told me the same thing when I saw her last fall. What is it with girls and guys' butts?"

"What is it with guys and girls' busts?" Wendy shot back. "Just something to admire! Besides, when I was pressed up against you there, I felt your interest in my own personal one growing."

"I guess I'll get used to this kind of conversation in time," Dipper said.

"You better. Hey, XYZ, man. There you go. What did Mabel mean, _tourtereaux amoureux_?"

Dipper zipped his jeans. "I think she was saying 'amorous lovebirds.' Hard to tell, because her accent's strange. See, she didn't do so great in French—our teacher was Mr. Deveraux, and instead of taking notes, she just made sketches of him all period long, surrounded by little balloony hearts. She thought he was hot."

Wendy raised an eyebrow. "Amorous lovebirds, huh? That's a tautology."

"That's what I was thinking!"

She grinned. "Like I didn't know! Ready to go downstairs?"

"OK. After breakfast I'll have to unpack, shower, and change clothes."

"Yeah, I'll need to shower and change, too. Mabel wouldn't mind if we did that together."

"It would be crowded with three in the tub, though," Dipper said.

Wendy punched his shoulder. "Didn't mean that! I'm not _that_ kinky!"

"Neither am I. Anyway, she'd probably take pictures."

* * *

Mabel insisted that she wanted a big, big breakfast! So Dipper broke training, and he and Wendy made hot Belgian waffles ("We should have invited Stan," Mabel said), sausage links, and hash-browned potatoes. As a side, Dipper broiled three small tomatoes that needed to be used.

Mabel took half of everything and Dipper and Wendy split the other half. "Mabes," Wendy said, "I dread to think of what might happen when your metabolism slows down."

"Talk later, eat now!"

That morning they gathered with Ford and Lorena, Sheila and Stan in the latter's house. They had a one-day-later Christmas, as Mabel said, exchanging gifts (they'd all agreed to limit them to one per person, because as Stan said, "Ya get to be our age, you suddenly realize there's a limit to the stuff you can stuff in your place, you know?").

So Stan and Sheila each got tablets, which Dipper and Mabel had pre-loaded with books—science books for Sheila, thrillers about con artists and books on horse-racing, dice, and card games for Stan. And Ford and Lorena got a Cloud-based security system for their house (courtesy of Alex's firm), plus a pair of tiny compact drones, just for fun.

Wendy got a gift card worth five hundred dollars at Hep Boys Auto Supply. "You'll have to go over to the Dalles to find a shop," Stan said. "But I figure you're never gonna stop tinkering, so maybe it'll come in handy."

"You guys!" Wendy said. "Thanks. And you're right! I'll try to spend it wisely."

Ford and Lorena presented her—and the twins—with coupons redeemable for round-trip air fare from their respective homes to LAX and back. "How did you know?" Dipper asked.

Ford raised his eyebrows. "I happened to be in the gift shop when those television people were filming their show, and I heard Wendy persuading two gentlemen to move a taping date so you could attend."

Dipper shot Wendy a surprised glance, but she mimed a lip-zip. "Thanks," he said. "But first class is way expensive!"

"You can trade for economy if you want," Lorena said. "That will give you credit for another flight.

It was Mabel's turn to shoot Dipper a significant glance. _Or to bring Teek along!_ Was her obvious thought.

They socialized all morning, went out for lunch at the Bread Basket, and then Mabel drove over to Teek's, while Stan and Sheila drove Wendy and Dipper back to the Shack. "Hey," he said as he let them out, "I know I shouldn't be telling you this, 'cause it'll probably lead to trouble, but Ulva—you remember her, Gideon's girlfriend—says something's brewing in the werewolf population. They're after some prey or other, so—don't go into the woods after dark. You'd freeze your tushies off, anyway."

"Thanks for the warning, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said.

It was still bitterly cold, so he and Wendy went in and built a nice fire. She kicked off her boots, rested her feet in his lap, and he gave her a foot massage that left her wiggling her toes in appreciation. She stretched and smiled at him. "Thanks, man, felt great. OK, you want to go into the woods by daylight, or what?"

"Huh?"

"I know you, Dip. If there's a hint of a mystery, you're on it like stink on a skunk. So what's the plan?"

Dipper didn't even bother to argue. "First, I think," he said, "we need to go call on Ulva."


	4. Chapter 4

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 26, 2016)**

* * *

**4**

Ulva, whose mother had lived as a human before being bitten by a handsome man who had turned out to be a werewolf, was herself bitten as a toddler and had spent most of her childhood in wolf form. Learning human ways was a painful struggle for her, but she was bright, focused, and above all, stubborn.

Gideon, now fifteen, had become her staunch defender and protector—though if push came to shove, Ulva would more likely provide the protection for both of them. Through his dad's connections and family friend Preston Northwest's pull, Ulva had been intensively tutored until she qualified as a student at Gravity Falls High. This year, she was a freshman, while Gideon was a sophomore.

The really encouraging thing was that everyone in school knew Ulva was a werewolf—and didn't care. She was so sweet, and Gideon so stuck on her, that even the bullies bypassed them, possibly as too-cute-fruit that hung too low on the branches. And though Gideon had in a sense rescued her—his family took her and her mother in after her father had been murdered by a crazed Pack leader and her mother had been savagely attacked—in turn, Ulva had smoothed his way for re-acceptance.

Like wolves, Gravity Fallers could hold grudges, but it was becoming hard to remember Li'l Gideon as the conniving., controlling trickster when you saw him walking down the halls holding hands with the girl with strange eyes and an odd grace in her movements. Nowadays Gideon, who'd lost some weight, grown into the remainder, and trimmed his hair (he had only recently lost the ponytail and had gone on to a sort of casual-shag cut was looking—well, not buff, exactly, but as if he were in good shape and could hold his own in a rough-and-tumble, giving as good as he got.

And he was undeniably clever and helpful to others. In fact, he collected favors the way some people collected stamps, creating a whole web of folks who owed him one or two. From among these, and much in the way that he had recruited a prison posse (he and Ghost Eyes were still close friends, and in an emergency, the others who were still outside the walls would rally to his side) Gideon assembled a network of friends ranging from loyal, brainy nerds to pure muscle. These students had nothing in common with each other but Gideon's friendship, but that was enough to make the Gideon crew secure and influential.

Anyway, Ulva and her mom lived in a neat little rental cottage a few blocks away from the Gleefuls', and she agreed to meet Dipper and Wendy, but asked if it could be at Gideon's house. "She's protecting her mom," Dipper whispered to Wendy at once, and he told Ulva that would be fine.

When Wendy and Dipper drove over for the visit, Mabel brought unexpected gifts for Gideon and Ulva—really all her doing, but she kindly put both her and Dipper's names on the tags. Gideon got a tablet, not quite as tricked out as those they'd given to Ford and Stan, but still impressively versatile. And for Ulva—

"Oh," the girl said in her soft voice as she unwrapped the tissue. "It is so much beautiful!" She unfolded the cloth and held it up for all to see.

It was a tapestry, a wool throw finely woven. The background was russet, and in a circular frame, a gray and black-and-white timber wolf's face stared out with startling clear eyes that looked anciently intelligent and deeply confident.

"It's by Sarah-Ann Chocolly," Mabel said. "She's a Native American artisan from the Chinook people. I met her at a craft expo, and I fell in love with this. When I saw it, I knew you had to have it."

"The maker was a great artist. She knew well the wolf people," Uma whispered. She clutched the throw to her breast. "I will keep it ever and will ask to be sewn up and buried in it at last."

"Well," Gideon said with an uneasy chuckle, "let's hope that's a hundred years from now, darlin'!"

Ulva wanted to sit with the blanket spread on her lap, her fingers stroking the wolf image as if it were a real animal. Dipper began with a question: "Grunkle Stan told us that the werewolves are acting strange," he said. "And that you felt it."

"Not felt," Ulva said, shaking her head. Her light-brown hair, strangely streaked with gray, flared around her face like soft wings. "Heard. At night. Three nights now. Far off, from different parts of—what is the word, Gideon? Not like mountain, not like wall—"

"Cliffs," Gideon suggested.

"Yes. Cliffs." Ulva smiled shyly. "English has so many different names for things. The wolf language is very simple. The way sounds are made and the order they fall in gives wolf talk meaning. Cliffs. I will not forget. The cliffs, you know, around the circle of valley? Werewolves mostly live on—bluff? Beauty?"

"Butte," Gideon corrected. "But it's really more of a plateau."

Dipper knew the place she meant—it lay behind Ghost Falls, a dropped plateau, its top about equidistant from the Valley floor and the summit of the cliffs. Difficult to reach, unexplored by humans, it was rumored—according to Ford—to be the last holdout of the werewolves and, possibly, centaurs and fauns. The latter two had been reported by people who'd glimpsed them from a distance (frequently through the bottom of a whiskey bottle). The existence of werewolves, who sometimes ventured down into the Valley, had been confirmed.

"They are moving," she said. "Not . . . not, um, re-locating. But like in hunt. Like stalking. But what they stalk is strange. Something that is faster than they. All night the hunt goes on, but wolves have not caught it yet. And nothing in Valley is faster than wolf on the ground. Nothing."

Wendy asked her, "Does the prey make any sound?"

Again Ulva shook her head. "But wolf-talk—like, 'Head it off! Circle it! It goes riverward!" Like . . . like they close behind. And getting more near. Nearer? Is right word, nearer?"

"That's right," Mabel said. "Does anybody else know?"

"Maybe Mother," Ulva said. "She . . . tell me, not go out at night for now. Not explain why. Maybe she know."

"But she doesn't know that you know?" Dipper asked.

The question was a little too complex for Ulva, but when Mabel explained, she said, "Oh. No, not talk to her. Sometimes at night she open my door, look in. When sounds of hunt are far off. To see if I am awake. I pretend sleep."

"Does anybody else hear it?" Wendy asked.

"Not humans. Ears wrong for such sound. Maybe sometimes a howl. But not the whole hunt. Dogs hear. Some nights, dogs bark when sound is going on. They hear. But not you." She blushed. "Not mean that bad."

"It's OK," Mabel said, putting her arm around Ulva's shoulders. The wolf-girl flinched a little, but then relaxed, accepting the touch. "We're different, but that's fine," Mabel continued. "We don't need to be the same. It would be boring if we were!"

"Boring," Ulva said as though tasting the word. "Means . . . get tired of fast?"

"Right, sugar," Gideon said.

"OK," Dipper said. "Where in the Valley do these sounds come from?"

"Different places each night."

Dipper had brought over a Mystery Shack souvenir, an eighteen-inch square reproduction of a parchment-colored map of the Valley first created in 1875. It showed some places that no longer existed—a tiny logging settlement called Durland's Crossing, a mining town called Plenty—but also the town of Gravity Falls.

"You know what this is?" Dipper asked when he'd spread it on the coffee table. They all knelt around it. Dipper put his finger on the map. "This is the break in the cliffs," he said. "Where the road goes out of the Valley now. Here's the town and the waterfall and lake. Way over here is Ghost Falls."

"A map," Ulva said. "Picture of the places. But turned wrong."

That surprised Dipper, but then he realized what she meant. Checking his compass, he turned and correctly re-oriented the map, so that the entrance to the Valley lay due east. "Is that right?"

Ulva nodded. Dipper made a mental note: _Werewolves and maybe wolves have some kind of magnetic geographical sense. _Something to put down in the Journal later.

"First night, here," Ulva said, pointing close to where the old covered bridge had stood near the ghost town of Plenty. "Then next night, here." Her finger moved to the badlands near Needle Falls. "Last night, closer. Here." This time she indicated the far side of the big mounded hill that covered the ancient buried UFO.

"Coming closer," Dipper said. "That's maybe ten miles from the Shack."

"What time do the sounds start?" Wendy asked.

"After the middle of night. Not much after. Every time."

Wendy glanced at Dipper. "Up to you, Dip. Your call."

"Keep the map," Dipper told Ulva. "If you hear the sounds tonight, call me—here, I'll write my number down." He did it in the margin of the map. "Now I'm going to put some labels on the map, OK?"

He went round the clock: N, NE, E, SE, E, S, SW, W, NW. Then he used his phone to take a photo of the map. "Call me if you hear the sounds. Tell me which of these the sounds are close to. Like if they're here—" he touched the map—"you'd tell me—"

"To right of NE," she said promptly. "And a little up from it."

"Wow," Mabel said. "You're quick!"

"We can narrow it down to a few square miles," Dipper told Wendy. "What do you think?"

"I think you better go buy some warmer clothes," Wendy said. "Cold snap's easing off, but the forecast is calling for a low of 34 tonight. And you'll need hiking shoes."

"Me, too," Mabel said.

"Sis, you'd probably better sit this one out," Dipper told her.

"What? No way! Where would you be without my grappling hook?"

"Better off?" Dipper asked.

Mabel shoved him.

"You are going to find hunt?" Ulva asked in a frightened voice.

"If some poor prey animal needs help, we're gonna give it!" Mabel pronounced.

Gideon said, "Uh, you know Ulva can't go, 'cause—"

"We know," Dipper said. The fact that the pack still held a deep grudge against Ulva and her mother did not need to be spoken aloud. "Her job is to alert us. We'll take it from there."

Ulva reached across the table and grasped Dipper's sleeve tightly. "Take—" she said, and then choked. She closed her eyes and forced the words out in a terrified whisper: "Take _silver!"_


	5. Chapter 5

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 26, 2016)**

* * *

**5**

Left to his own impulses, Dipper would have headed straight for the Sprawl-Mart store, but Wendy steered him and Mabel to the Northwest Cliff outfitters in Hirschville instead. "Go for quality over cheap," she advised him. "What we get will last you ten years. It might cost three hundred bucks. But the cheap stuff will run you at least a hundred, and it would wear out in two years, so you'd have to replace it. Over ten years, you'd spend five hundred dollars, not three!"

"Such a bargain!" Mabel exclaimed. "I'm getting six of everything!"

They had some difficulty, but finally talked her out of that, and she grudgingly agreed to just one of each item for herself.

As to what they would need for cold-weather hiking, Dipper had no idea. However, he learned from Wendy.

Top to bottom: Balaclava that would save cheeks and nose from frostbite. Fleece cap to go over that. Then long thermal underwear, tops and bottoms. Fleece pullover. Waterproof, windproof hooded jacket. Hard shell side-zipped windproof and waterproof pants. Fleece socks. Waterproof high-rise hiking boots. Fleece gloves and waterproof mittens to wear over them.

"You've already got the rest you'll need," Wendy said. "Running pants, long-sleeved tee, and so on."

"But we just picked up hiking pants, so why—"

"Layers are the key," Wendy told him.

Mabel next, and except for adding jogging pants and long-sleeved tee, her selections were about the same as Dip's. Grand total: $975.00, and that included the after-Christmas 25% blowout sale discount. Dipper took a deep, deep breath and offered his debit card, praying that nothing would glitch.

It didn't. The card came through, and his personal savings account was suddenly down under four thousand dollars.

"Good thing most of my income's going straight into our college accounts," he told Mabel.

"Let's go home and try this swag on!" Mabel responded.

About an hour later in the Shack, a puffy-looking Mabel modeled her purchases. "Do I look outdoorsy and ruggedly sexy?" she asked.

"More like Bibendum," Dipper told her.

"Huh?" Wendy asked, as Mabel tilted her head, gave him a wide-eyed astonished expression, and asked, "The what with the which, now?"

"Bibendum," Dipper repeated. "You know, the Michelin Man. That mascot that looks like an inflatable doll. His name's Bibendum."

"You just made that up!" Mabel accused.

"No, his name's really Bibendum!" Dipper insisted.

"Ten bucks says you're wrong!"

"I'll take that bet," Wendy said.

"OK." Dipper struggled out of his layers—they all fit, but he felt he could probably go over Gravity Falls itself, plummet down a thousand feet, and not hurt himself on the rocks, insulated in all that padding. They gathered at the dining table, he broke out his laptop, and looked up the name "Bibendum."

"There you go," Dipper said, turning the computer as images of the advertising icon popped up.

"Hey, Mabes?" Wendy asked, holding out her hand. "Pay up."

"Aggh!" Mabel handed over a ten-dollar bill. "I hate losing a bet!"

"Just got mine back from the unicorn incident," Wendy said.

"What's the unicorn incident?" Dipper asked.

"Never mind!" Mabel snapped.

"Tell you later," said Wendy, unbuttoning her shirt and tucking the ten-spot inside her bra.

Mabel was all for setting out right that moment, but Dipper reasonably pointed out that (A) it was only three in the afternoon, (B) Ulva hadn't called to say that the wolf chase was on again and where to find it, and (C) she was going to suffocate in all that clothing.

She took it off, changed to jeans and ordinary sweater, and said, "OK, I just talked to Teek on the phone. He's coming over in an hour, and him and me are going out to get some early dinner. Don't go without me, all right?"

"You plannin' to stay out until midnight?" Wendy asked.

"If Teek gets lucky," Mabel said, jiggling her eyebrows and grinning.

"Come on," Dipper said. "Ulva says she never hears the hunt until past midnight. That's what Wendy means."

"Then if she calls before I get back, just give me a ring and tell me where, and me and Teek will drive over to—"

"Bad idea," Wendy said, shaking her head.

Dipper agreed: "Seriously, Teek shouldn't come along on this one. He doesn't have as much experience, werewolves are super scary, and you two would distract each other by trying to look out for one another. Not this time, OK?"

"OK," said Mabel in a mildly disappointed tone.

Dipper nodded. "Good decision. Got your silver?"

Mabel tugged down her turtleneck to show she wore a silver chain, then pulled back her sleeves to reveal silver bracelets.

"Those _are_ real silver, right?" Wendy asked.

"Absolutely," Mabel assured her. "Teek got these for me, and I had a jeweler appraise them." When her brother and friend stared at her, she said, "I love him, but you know—trust but verify!"

"Stan's influence," Dipper said.

"For sure," Wendy agreed.

"Oh, Stan gave me what he says is an anti-werewolf amulet. Silver pentacle in a ring. I also got it hanging on the chain," Mabel said. "It's down there somewhere—oh, behind me. Must've twisted it getting into all that hiking gear."

"Look," Dipper said, "that's good and all, but after your dinner, plan to be back here no later than nine, OK? We'll drive over to Wendy's house—she's got the axe with the silver edge that she's gonna lend me—"

"What about you?" Mabel asked Wendy.

"Gonna take old Archibald Corduroy's axe myself," Wendy said. "Dr. P. checked it out, and he thinks it's good against all brands of paranormal critters."

"Also," Dipper said, "she has some silver chains for her and for me, and another anti-werewolf amulet, this one specially blessed and containing some wolfsbane, that she got from Ford."

"Are werewolves really all that dangerous?" Mabel asked.

"_Ulva's_ scared to death of them," Dipper said. "And she _is _one."

"I guess I gotta be serious about this," Mabel muttered. "OK. I'll get all my silliness out with Teek. Then it's Mabel the Serious Stalker of suspicious something else that starts with S werewolves!"

"Have a good time," Wendy said as Mabel went to her room to get ready.

* * *

Wendy and Dipper ate in—nothing fancy, but Wendy made some petite steaks and they baked a couple of potatoes and worked up a salad. "Are you scared?" Dipper asked her as they sat at the dining-room table.

"Little bit," Wendy said. "I've seen werewolves in action. They're incredibly quick and very sly, and they work together. We'll have to be on our toes not to get surrounded or cut off from one another."

"Best bet," Dipper said, "would be to get ahead of them, so they'd chase whatever their prey is toward us. Upstairs I've got six flash-bang grenades—"

"Grenades?' Wendy asked, pausing with a bite of steak halfway to her lips. "You serious?"

"Yeah. Ford had a case down in the tactical closet, and I checked the expiration dates. They're good until 2020. They're non-lethal. Stun grenades, law-enforcement people call them. It's basically a firecracker with a charge of magnesium powder and potassium nitrate—makes a really loud bang, and at night a blinding flash of light. The werewolves are sensitive to loud sounds and to unexpected light. It ought to buy us some seconds, but we can't look directly at the flash. I'll take three and you can have three—"

"Mabel?" Wendy asked.

"The God of Destruction? If I gave her two, she'd try them both out before we got there! You don't want to mix Mabel and fireworks. But we'll caution her. Now, if we're sure the wolves are coming, when they're in range—meaning as far as we can throw one of these—one of us will pull the pin, yell 'Fire!' Then we turn away until the explosion."

"Might spook the prey, too!" Wendy said.

"We'll have to take the chance," Dipper said. "I think one bang might stop the werewolves, and two might make them retreat—if they think we have more. But we won't use them unless we've got a clear shot. Otherwise, we'll rely on the axes. I need to practice."

"I'll shoot you what I know," Wendy said. "But, yeah, you'll need the muscle memory so you won't hurt yourself instead of the target. You can use Soos's woodpile axe for that. I'll supervise you soon as we finish eating and clean up."

"Thanks. I guess we can set up a log as a target or something."

"Sure, but it'll be a stationary one. It'll be a heck of a lot harder if a werewolf is attacking, but I'll give you some tips on weak points. One thing, though. Dip—do we aim for a kill?"

Dipper bent his head. "Only as a last resort. If they attack us directly, or if we have to keep them off Mabel. I don't want to kill one if we can avoid it."

"Gotcha. But if it comes to that—"

"If it comes to protecting you or Mabel—"

"Or yourself. Promise."

"Or myself, yes, I'd kill if I had to."

"Hope it doesn't come to that," Wendy said.

"Me, too," Dipper told her. "Me, too."


	6. Chapter 6

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 26, 2016)**

* * *

**6**

As seven PM and full dark approached, Dipper and Wendy sat at the table, strategizing—as much as they could. Dipper said, "OK, it's almost new moon—that will be, let's see, on Thursday night—and that may help us. The run-of-the-mill werewolves, the ones who are in human shape for most of the year, won't be able to transform. But the true lycanthropes—"

"Like Ulva."

"Right, they can transform anytime. It's just an act of will with them. I mean, even in the noonday sun they could take wolf form if they wanted. As I understand from what Ulva's said, there's a little village up on the plateau. She doesn't know how many are in it, but I'd guess fewer than 300. Those are the humanoid werewolves. For most of the time, they're more or less human, but for three days when the moon is full or close to it, they have to change at night. There may be another fifty or sixty true Lycans. They're the ones we have to worry about."

"Too many for us, dude," Wendy said.

"If they all ran together, but Ulva thinks it's more likely a hunting pack. That means a small group, fewer than ten."

"Fewer to confront, but those few are stronger than the, I guess, normal werewolves," Wendy said.

Dipper nodded "Right. They're powerful and fast. A humanoid werewolf—let's just call them werewolves and the others Lycans—might retain some feelings even in wolfish form. But Lycans feel only loyalty to the Pack. If they encounter a human, they might pass him by or might kill him or might just bite and change him. So we have to make them keep their—"

Someone rapped on the door, making both Wendy and Dipper jump. "Mabel's got a key," Dipper said, on his way to the door. "I wonder what's up with—oh. Hi."

"Howdy," said Gideon, standing next to Ulva. "Excuse us for droppin' around unannounced, but we run across Mabel downtown, and she said you were thinkin' 'bout goin' out there in the wilderness to see what the wolves are doin?"

"Come on in," Dipper said. "Uh—how did you get here?"

"I drove us," Gideon said as they came in. Ulva smiled shyly but did not speak.

"Dude!" Wendy said from the dining-room door. "You're not even legal age for a teen license yet!"

"Aw, that's just a li'l ol' legal technicality," Gideon said. "My daddy arranged with Sheriff Blubs for me to be able to drive so long as it's just inside city limits. He had this little ol' VW bug, right good condition, but nobody wanted it, so I can borrow it any old time."

"You be careful on the roads," Wendy cautioned. "'Specially when they're icy and when I'm out driving. I don't want to run into you, or vice-versa."

"Sit down," Dipper said, pulling out a chair for Ulva. "Uh—hot cocoa or anything?"

"No, thank you kindly," Gideon said. "Listen, Ulva don't think anything's likely to happen before midnight, but you best be prepared. Now, here is the idea—and it wasn't mine, no, sir, give credit where it's due, Ulva thought it up all by herself, and it's pure genius."

"Oh, stop," Ulva whispered, her gaze down at her lap.

"It's true," Gideon said. "Now, let me ask if you got the equipment."

He asked, and Dipper had it.

"That's fine, that's fine," Gideon said, rubbing his hands. "Now if Ulva could just use the ladies' room, she needs to change."

* * *

By a quarter to eight, Dipper had ushered Gideon and Ulva out, thanking them both for coming. "Careful," Ulva whispered. "Will be bad ones."

"We'll be careful," he promised.

Before she left, she peeked toward the coat closet. "In there," she said. "Silver. Can feel it from here. And something else. Take with."

"We plan to," he told her.

It was already cold out—on its way down to near-freezing, but not the Arctic chill it had been on Sunday night—and he watched Gideon open the passenger door for Ulva, see her in, and then go around to the driver's side of the yellow Beetle. "That's an old car," he said.

"Mm, yeah, real hard to tell with that early model, but probably from the 1960s. Bud must've put in some work to get it running as well as it seems to. Wouldn't be street-legal in California, but I guess it's OK to putter around Gravity Falls in."

"Gideon shouldn't be driving," Dipper said as he closed the door.

"Well, it's just barely a step up from a golf cart," Wendy said. "I seem to recall—"

"Off-road, though," Dipper pointed out. "I wonder where Mabel is."

Five minutes later, he knew, because she came in the gift-shop door, bellowing, "Where are all the werewolf hunters? Let's get this show on the road!"

"Still not time," Dipper called from the dining room. "Hey, Mabel, mix up some Mabel Juice. We have to stay alert tonight."

Mabel bopped in. "Hey, Gideon has this cute little car—"

"We saw it," Wendy told her. "He and Ulva dropped by. He said you told him what we were up to."

"Huh? Oh, well, yeah, I did. Teek and me were about to drive out to the Bread Basket and we saw Gideon and Ulva getting into that little yellow Bug and I yelled for Teek to stop and we chatted a little. Was that bad?"

"No," Dipper said. "It gave Ulva an idea that may help us."

"Cool! Uh. I think we should call Grunkle Ford before we start out."

"We should," Dipper agreed. "But I'm not going to. He'd insist that we have to wait and research and prepare, and—I don't think there's time for that. But I've got an email I've set up, and before we leave, I'll send it. I'll add where we're going if I have time. Then we can call on him for backup if we need to."

"What did Ulva tell you?" Mabel asked.

"Not very much. Just to be careful."

Wendy said, "Mabes, you have to understand something about wolves. Ulva was born into that society. It's way down deep in her now, and though she's on our side, she's got this great big line she can't cross."

"Loyalty to the Pack," Dipper said. "She knows that some of the stronger members of the Pack hate her and her mother, and that they'd kill both of them if they got the chance. But—they're leaders of what was always her Pack. Going against them is like—well, it's doing something completely foreign to her nature. It's almost impossible."

"I don't understand."

"Imagine," Wendy said, "that you were visiting Waddles and someone came up and gave you a gun and ordered you to shoot—"

Mabel turned pale and put her hands over her ears. "Stop!"

Dipper nodded. "That's how Ulva feels. You know nobody would order you to do that to Waddles, but look how upset you are. Ulva doesn't really want to protect the Lycans who would hurt her and her mother, but they're above her in the Pack order. Her loyalty is as deep as your love for Waddles. It's so hard for her to deal with those feelings that we can't push her."

"I guess I see," Mabel said. "Hey! Let me tell you guys about the great dinner we had! And then I'll make an extra-potent jug of Mabel Juice!"

"Yeah," Dipper said flatly. "I'm totally looking forward to that."

* * *

At a few minutes to midnight, Dipper's phone rang. It was Gideon's phone, but Ulva's voice, trembling with fear. "Hear them. Six I think."

Dipper walked over to the dining-room table and turned the map around. "Where?" he asked.

"Near center, more west. Behind round-top hill."

"How far?"

"Not far behind. Might be heading toward hill. Hard to say."

"We're on it. Thanks, Ulva. We'll let you know what we find."

"Take care," she said.

Dipper thumbed off his phone and reached for the pullover jacket and the hoodie. "This is it," he called to Mabel and Wendy. "Let's roll!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 26, 2016)**

* * *

**7**

Wendy broke out the Jeep. "Got enough gas?" Dipper asked as they piled in.

"Roger that, Dip," Wendy said. "Checked it out earlier today. We're good to go. Seatbelts!"

"Got it!" Mabel said from the back seat. "Punch it!"

Wendy didn't exactly do that, but they sped through the night faster than Dipper would have driven and maybe at nearly the same speed Mabel would have made. Grateful that Wendy knew pretty much every twist and turn of every alley, lane, road, street, road, and logging trail in the Valley, Dipper hung on.

"Goin' off-road in a second," Wendy said after twenty minutes of fast driving. "Hold onto your dinners!"

Then they started weaving like a broken-field runner, swinging wide around young trees, sometimes really wide and uphill to avoid a fallen trunk. They broke out of the lightly-forested terrain on the southern flank of the hill and then jolted on a tilting course westward, around the base. Cold air whistled in, making Dipper grateful for the layers of clothing, especially for the windproof hoodie and the balaclava.

"_Wooo-hooo!"_ yelled Mabel. "Next summer you gotta let me drive the Jeep! And maybe after that—a tank!"

"_That'll_ be the day!" Dipper yelled over his shoulder.

"Think we're as close as we need to get," Wendy said. "Hang on while I turn this sucker around. Want to be pointed the right way in case we need a quick getaway!" She parked the Jeep on relatively level grass and switched off the headlights. "Hang on a sec, Dip," she said.

He heard something jingling, and then she said, "Hold out your hand." He felt her take his wrist, and then she put something in his palm. "Put this in an inside pocket now. Don't lose it!"

"What is it?" he asked before holding the tip of a glove finger in his teeth and tugging the glove off. He got out of the Jeep and unzipped enough to stick the item into his jeans pocket.

"Spare key for the Jeep," Wendy said. "Just in case I—I'm not up to driving after."

His heart pounded hard, once. "If it's too dangerous—"

"Come on," Wendy said, putting an axe in his hands. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, right?"

"Right!" Mabel said. "Charge! Uh—which way?"

"Follow me," Wendy said. "Eyes on!"

"Oh, yeah," Mabel muttered. "Forgot!"

Dipper had raided Ford's underground lab for three pairs of Fiddleford's improved night-vision goggles. He pulled his down, powered them on, and then re-gloved his hand.

Everything showed up in shades of green and black. Wendy's long red hair was blindingly bright. He followed it like a banner.

They were on the lowest slope of the hill opposite the town. When the ancient UFO had crashed hard, its shields had pulverized layers of ancient rock, blasting out a crater many times the craft's size. In the thirty million years since, layers of silt had filled in the very bottom of the crater, piles of semi-molten rock had solidified into the backbones of hills, and plants and animals had colonized the huge round Valley.

The spaceship had acquired deep layers of sod. It had become the prominent round hill near the Valley's center.

However, the angle of the crash meant that this far side of the hill was steeper than the one toward town. They still had some elevation—the range of the night-vision goggles seemed to be a hundred yards or a little more, and beyond the boundary of what they could see lay the darkness of forest and the far faint outline of bluffs and mountains.

Wendy stopped, and Dipper almost blundered into her. "Here. I thought I heard something far-off. Everybody quiet and listen!"

They stood in a triangular grouping, Wendy a step or two downslope, Dipper and Mabel flanking her. Though not as cold as it had been, the air was sharply chill in Dipper's nostrils when he rolled the balaclava up to uncover his ears. A wind out of the west rustled the long dry grass.

Something not awfully far off called out "Oo! Oo! Oo! Oo!" and Mabel grabbed Dipper's arm. "What is that?"

"Gray owl," Wendy said in a loud whisper. "Not that—there—hear that?"

Dipper did. The sound, right on the edge of hearing, was not howling, not barking, but something fierce and sharp and cold—the sound of a wolf pack close to its prey and gaining on it.

Wendy pointed with her axe. In the night-vision goggles, the implement shone like the full moon. "That way, maybe a mile off. Coming towards us. Zig-zagging. Whatever—"

"Whoa!" Mabel yelled as Dipper sucked in his breath. Beyond the boundary of the goggles' effectiveness, something like a meteor soared not down, but up, arching upwards from the forest, high above the trees and then coming down again somewhere in the dark woods. "What was that?"

"Don't know," Wendy said. "Not a flare signal. Not a bird."

The sounds of the pursuing wolves broke out, changed direction, and fell silent. Dipper heard only the dry whispers of the wind in the grass Something swooped across his line of vision, and he ducked involuntarily, but Wendy said, "There goes the owl, gettin' the hell out of Dodge."

"Are we going to charge right into them?" Mabel asked.

"Not unless we have to. Come on—if we're gonna meet 'em, it ought to be on level ground," Wendy said. They walked a short way, off the lowest slope of the hill, onto a meadow that, at the far side, gradually spiked up into saplings and then forest. "Mabel, get ready. If six of them come charging us, remember—never give an enemy a break. Smash 'em, cut 'em, make 'em run or send them to hell."

"I'm scared," Mabel admitted.

"We are, too," Dipper said. "But courage means being scared and standing up anyway."

"Got it—whoa! Is it coming to us?"

The leaping thing, whatever it was, had soared again, this time seemingly aiming for the clearing. "Maybe it can see us," Wendy said.

"Or smell us," Dipper added.

"Nope. We're downwind of it and the wolves, lucky for us. If they charge out, we'll have surprise on our side. Dip, did you get a good look at that thing?"

"No, just a bright silver blur."

The wolves yowled, closer now. "They're changing direction," Wendy said. "They're probably gonna come out of the forest over on the right."

Dipper fingered one of the grenades hanging from his belt. "When they show up, should I toss one?" he asked.

"Keep that in case we can't handle 'em," Wendy said. "Mabel, you stay close beside me. You watch out for my axe."

"Right."

"Whoa!" Dipper said. Again, and even closer, the soaring figure arched high overhead—and came streaking down on the slope behind them.

"I see it!" Mabel said. "Oh, my God, it's gone dark and collapsed!"

"We got other things to worry about!" Wendy said. "Eyes forward!"

Fifty yards away, out of the tree cover, unaware of the three humans ahead of them, the wolf pack broke through in furious hot pursuit.

Six of them. Charging blindly, headlong, looking not for humans but for whatever it was that leaped away from them.

Dipper raised his axe.


	8. Chapter 8

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 27, 2016)**

* * *

**8**

Wendy growled, "Stay tight, both of you—no running out and fighting on your own! Dipper, remember—legs, especially knees. Mabel, use your grappling hook to knock 'em down!"

"But I brought—"

"Only as a last resort!" Dipper said.

The pack of six wolves, led by a great shaggy beast so darkly gray that in the night-vision goggles it showed up as a living patch of midnight, halted when it became aware of the three humans.

Behind Dipper, on the lower slope of the hill, something panted and gasped loud enough for them all to hear.

"Don't get distracted, Mabel!" Wendy warned. "These guys are figurin' us out."

The wolves snarled and growled, hesitated for a moment, and then confidently began to stalk toward them. _They think we're pushovers, _Dipper realized.

He could foresee what they would try. "Pincer movement!" he said. "Four in the middle, two flanking! Get ready!"

The four in front of them, including the pack leader, pressed on fast. Wendy's axe cut a gleaming streak in the air, striking one on the jaw and making the others jerk away—and the two wolves on the sides charged in.

Dipper heard the zing of Mabel's grappling hook and the agonized yelp as it thunked into a wolf's head. Wendy had soldered old dimes on its grapples—silver ones.

Dipper's wolf leaped for him, but he ducked low, swung, and connected with a hind joint—ankle, if it had been human—and that wolf, too, yowled and tumbled away, hobbling to rejoin the pack.

"OK?" Wendy asked.

"This works great!" Mabel said as the grappling hook retracted.

"Don't get cocky!" Dipper warned. "They're regrouping."

They did, three of them licking wounds. One of the injured ones whined, and the leader snapped at it, causing it to cower belly-low. They broke into two groups, three and three, and began to pace.

"Gettin' us between them," Wendy said. "They're gonna try to catch us in the middle and overpower us. Dip, me and Mabel have the ones splittin' to our left. Yell if you need help."

"Got it. You got the leader on your side. Watch him!"

For a second, Dipper thought the wolves were going to bypass them altogether and rush their downed prey—but then the monsters surged toward him. He swung at the lead one, connected, and got a second on the backswing. The third, hampered by an injured hind leg, backed away as the other two scrambled, whimpering and hurt.

Behind him, Wendy wielded the ghost-axe, keeping even the huge leader at bay. But then she yelled, "Look out, Mabes!"

The zing and thunk of the grappling hook again, but Mabel yelled, "It grabbed the line! I can't hold on! Is this that last resort, Dipper?"

Dipper, fending off the limping wolf with his own blade and realizing that the two other werewolves were flanking him, yelled, "Close enough!"

"Ha!" Mabel drew from her belt an antique knife, borrowed from the Shack. The weapon instantly shone with a cold pale-blue brilliance. She shouted, "Behold! I bear the blade of Kintoki Yamoto, slayer of werewolves! Come who dare!"

Dipper couldn't see what happened, but she dropped into a bent-kneed crouch, balancing on the balls of her feet, and with her left fingers mockingly beckoned the huge shaggy gray wolf that had snatched away her grappling hook. It sprang forward with a snarl.

The blade, an ancient Samurai kaiken, came with an extra: the spirit of legendary monster-slayer Kintoki inhabited it, and that spirit flowed into Mabel. Vaguely thinking _I'm really gonna have issues, _the animal lover felt a rising primitive joy at the prospect of dealing with this foe.

The wolf leaped, arching down on her—

A prima ballerina would kill for the kind of grace Mabel showed as she pirouetted and slashed, and that werewolf crashed to earth, screamed, and fled into the night, bleeding. Mabel hurled a curse after it that she didn't even understand: "Imaimashī!" Meanwhile, Wendy had forced the leader and its remaining companion back.

"Little help!" Dipper yelled, and Mabel swiveled to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. Two wolves crouched indecisively, balanced between charging and running. The gleaming, hungry blade of Mabel's daunted them.

The pack leader yowled, and they all broke away and regrouped again, an injured pack now, and a diminished one—the terrified creature that Mabel had slashed had not stopped running, and its yelps faded into the forest, despite a sharp short howl that the pack leader sent back over his shoulder. No use. That follower had left the battlefield. The remaining five werewolves faltered, feinting weakly left and right.'

Wendy yelled at them, her voice powerful: "I know some of you understand me! Explain to those that don't, this ain't your territory! From now on, it's _ours_! The shooting star! The great bear! And the wind-walker! _We own it_! That's us, and if we catch you in our territory, we cut you in pieces!"

"And we do it with silver!" Dipper added. "What we cut off won't grow back!"

"We'll take your chopped-up bodies and feckin'_ eat_ them!" Mabel screamed, in a nails-on-blackboard voice that made the creatures shiver.

For an unsteady moment, the werewolves muttered uneasy growls. Then the pack leader, the midnight wolf, huge and red-eyed, snapped at one and then another, driving them forward.

"Get ready to lose your wolfmanhood!" Mabel shouted. Then in a completely unfamiliar tone, she added, "Sensei! Kintoki Yamoto, strike them through me! _Hai_!"

The biggest wolf, the dark leader, rushed Wendy, leaping at her so fast she couldn't swing. But the instant it grappled with her, it howled and fell back, jaws snapping on cold air. Wendy carried the stench of silver, and worse, the amulet, and even he couldn't bear it long enough to bite. He hit, rolled to his feet, sprang away to the right—

The pack leader had misjudged the distance. Dipper slashed the creature's left shoulder, and it sprawled, tumbling across the dry grass, bleeding and yelping. Mabel dived across Dipper and caught a second leaping creature's belly with Kintoki's kaiken—something inside her wanted to plunge it deep and spill the werewolf's guts, but she pulled the strike and merely opened a foot-long shallow gash that ended with a bite into the ribs. The wounded werewolf either involuntarily or purposely half-morphed into a humanoid shape, couldn't hold it, and dropped to all fours again, jerking in agony before fleeing, trailing blood.

The five remaining werewolves drew back. The wounded leader limped to the rear and said something to the others in their weird, warbling, yodel-like wolf-talk.

"Get ready," Wendy said. "They're gonna all rush us at once."

"Bang-flash," Dipper said.

"Yeah, while they're grouped. Right among 'em! Mabel, close your eyes!"

Dipper pulled the pin. The wolves were gathering their muscles to spring—

He threw.

Even with his eyes closed, he could see the brilliant eruption of light, red through his eyelids as the blast echoed from the hills and the bluffs way beyond. Mabel yelled, "Whoa!"

"You can look now!" Wendy said.

When Dipper opened his eyes, in the green world of the night goggles he could see the wolves vanishing, tails tucked, into the edge of the forest. They did not flee, but stopped somewhere beneath the trees.

"They won't stay scared long," Wendy said. "Secret weapon, Dip!"

Dipper reached to his belt again and pulled out the voice recorder. They couldn't bring Ulva with her on this dangerous trip.

But he had brought her voice on Fiddleford's astounding digital recorder, which for all its small size could boom painfully loud.

He pressed _play. _Ulva's uncanny wolf-growls and howls sounded out loud and fierce.

None of them could understand it, but in her human shape, Ulva had explained: "I tell them go now. Go back to own territory. Or die! I tell them their leader is false. I tell them, choose true leader! If they go, they howl three times. Three! No wolf break that promise."

Her recorded voice ended with three crisp howls.

For a few seconds, Dipper could only hear Wendy and Mabel breathing hard and a low moan from behind them, from whatever lay wounded on the hillside.

Then one wolf howled. Once, twice, three times. Before the third howl died away, two more wolves joined, then a fourth. Three times for each of them. Fierce snarls from one wolf, though, and the sounds of a sharp, quick fight before the howling ones sounded again, farther away.

Then silence.

"Leader's not buying it," Wendy said.

"I gotta go help the poor wounded thing on the hill," Mabel told them, replacing the kaiken in its scabbard.

Wendy said, "Back up, Dip. You and me, back to back. Stay alert. It comes, we kill it. You with me?"

"To protect Mabel. Yeah. We'll have to. Let's do it."

"You and me, Dip."

"You and me, Wen."

From a short way up the hill, they heard Mabel gasp, "I don't believe it!"


	9. Chapter 9

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 27, 2016)**

* * *

**9**

"Anybody hurt? Bitten? Even scratched?" Wendy asked as she and Dipper drew near Mabel.

"No," Dipper said. "Mabel?"

"Huh?"

"You OK? They didn't bite you or scratch—"

"No, no, fine."

They had reached her, and for the first time Dipper glanced down. Mabel knelt in the grass, her hands on . . . something . . . that faintly twinkled with silver lights. Then it all faded.

"What is that?" Dipper asked.

"Dip!" Wendy warned. "Stay sharp, man! It's out there somewhere."

"Just a second." Dipper reached in his coat pocket and fumbled with something inside. Grimacing, he pulled off his gloves—the air was cold, but he could stand it for a while—and pulled out his old, compact anomaly detector. "Wendy, I'm gonna need both hands for a minute. Mabel. Mabel! Keep a watch out to the right, and if anything moves—"

"Hurry!"

Dipper had preset the detector to organic shape-shifter. He turned it on and carefully set it on the ground. "That will sound an alarm if the werewolf gets within a hundred feet. It shows all clear right now." He slipped the glove back on and shouldered his axe.

"Mabel," Wendy said impatiently, "what are you doing? What is that?"

"It's an animal," Mabel said. "A big one. But it's fading in and out. When it breathes, I can see it a little, but when it exhales, it's just an outline with twinkly sparks."

"Not a shapeshifter, though," Dipper said. "The detector would have gone off."

"Are you sure it's not an illusion?" Wendy asked.

"No, I can feel it, and it's warm. Wait a minute."

"What are you doing?" Dipper asked.

"Taking off these stupid goggles."

"Don't do it!" Wendy said.

"Oh!" Mabel exclaimed. "I can see it a little better without them! I mean, it's a dark shape, but—I see. I see! It's real!"

"Mabel!" Dipper pleaded.

"It got clearer! When I said that—wait, maybe—I believe in you! I believe you're real!"

"What are you talking to?" Wendy asked.

"You have to see it."

"Mabel, the Pack leader's out there somewhere! Can we carry this thing to the Jeep?"

"Too big," Mabel said. "Come on, please don't fade out! You guys, help me!"

"Mabel, we can't!" Dipper said.

After a moment, Wendy said, "Help her, Dip, but keep the axe handy. That detector goes off, you arm yourself and kill anything that comes running at us!"

"You sure?" Dipper asked.

"I'm sure that we can't stand here until sunrise!" Wendy shot back. "Go on, I got it."

Dipper gingerly hunkered down, placing the axe where he could grab it in a hurry. He turned so he faced Mabel. "All I see is sort of a swarm of silver firefly-like lights," he said.

"Raise up your goggles."

Dipper pushed them up, just on his forehead. He could yank them back into position in half a second. If he had that long.

Darkness fell like a curtain. He could very dimly make out Mabel in the faint starlight, and a dark shape the size of a big dog, a Borzoi or a large Great Dane. No, even larger, and with long legs? It was hard to be sure. Without the goggles, the little sparks of light had dimmed. The shape drew a long breath and seemed to gain solidity for a moment. Still he couldn't be sure—

"Take off your gloves and put your hands on it," Mabel said. "Hurry! I think it'll die if you don't!"

Dipper had not replaced his gloves. After a moment of hesitation, he knelt and did what Mabel had told him to do. He felt a definite body, trembling a little. He was touching coarse fur that seemed to overlie a softer inner coat. "What the heck is it?" Dipper asked.

"Dipper," Mabel said in a voice full of pleading, "you know there's all kinds of creatures in Gravity Falls that are just legends and myths everywhere else, right? Manotaurs and Gnomes and even fairies—"

"What is it?" Dipper asked.

Mabel took a deep breath. "It's—I think—it's one of Santa's reindeer."

Everything inside Dipper rejected the claim. Flying reindeer? Part of Santa's team?

But Santa was—was nothing but a children's legend, a pleasant story, and the reindeer hadn't even been part of it until, what, Clement Moore's poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas?" And that had been written in the nineteenth century—

No, this was too bizarre, too unlikely. It was worse. It was silly, it was corny. It was childish—

"Dipper," Mabel cried out, nearly sobbing, "you're not believing! You have to _believe!_"

_What am I supposed to do, clap my hands like a kid watching Tinkerbell dying up on stage? I can't pretend to do something impossible for me to do! _His mouth felt dry. "I—Mabel—I don't know how!"

Wendy said, "Dip! Listen to her! You got a kid inside you! Find him! Call on him!"

Dipper felt as if his heart were being torn. "I don't know if I can! I don't even know if it'll help!"

"Dipper, please," Mabel said. "Please try. Think of what's _behind _the story, not the story!"

Dipper tried. He remembered a Christmas season when he and Mabel were really small, sitting side by side on the sofa, holding hands, watching that Rudolph special on TV, the puppet-reindeer, the reject, the misfit—

He had felt something then. Like the reindeer in the story, Dipper was a loner, with nobody to befriend him. Not one person outside of the family, who had to love him because that was part of the burden of being in the family.

No friends. Not one. Like the sad little hero of the animated TV special.

But—but he_ had_ felt something, empathy, a kind of wordless understanding.

Wait. Mabel had said to believe in . . . _What's behind the story._

Christmas. OK, it was a good time. His family celebrated it because of Mom, like they celebrated Hanukkah because of Dad. Both holidays brought . . . joy. Because, because—why? What was behind both?

_Logic's not gonna help me here!_

"Think with your heart," Mabel whispered, as if the two of them really did have twin ESP and she'd heard his despair.

Christmas. A time for family and presents you gave because you loved someone. A time for sharing and remembering. Santa, Santa, what did Santa embody? Not the presents. Not anything material.

Kindness. Acceptance. Love for all, and it didn't matter what they believed or didn't believe. A kind of—of Grace. Just a temporary state, but one that told you Grace was possible.

A moment for recognizing the little spark of goodness that even those you didn't like must hold somewhere deep in their hearts.

A moment of—understanding, for letting anger and disappointment and bitterness go. A time above all for forgiving . . . .

"Yes!" Mabel said, joy in her voice.

Dipper opened his eyes and said, "I believe. I do. I believe!"

"Me, too!" Wendy said. "If it helps, I believe—because my heart tells me to, because my friend believes! Because the man I love does!"

"Get away! Let him go!" Mabel yelled.

Dipper pushed back.

Something silver and gold and shaped like a deer rose to its long legs, crouched, and bounded up, up, and did not come down, but streaked into the sky and headed northward, like a meteor rising instead of falling.

Its trajectory would take it beyond the Valley, somewhere safe.

Who knows?

It might even take it to the North Pole, or to some version of the world where the rest of the team, where even a jolly old man, waited for it to return home.

Mabel fell on Dipper, hugging him tight. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And urgently, the anomaly detector sounded the alarm.


	10. Chapter 10

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 27, 2016)**

* * *

**10**

"Mabel! Goggles!" Dipper yelled, pulling his own down, retrieving the axe, and springing to his feet.

"Comin' down the hill!" Wendy shouted.

The werewolf had circled them, evidently high on the slope of the UFO hill, and now came charging down, weirdly changed. It had tried to go to its human form for some reason—maybe stealth—and was frozen partway between shapes.

Its hind legs had the high knee and the long crooked ankle of a wolf, but from the midriff up it had become a bloody, misshapen mess, barrel-chested, long-armed, with huge paw-hands hooked with claws and a round head with he ears of a wolf and a strange protruding jaw, halfway between snout and human face. In the green glow of the goggles, its eyes burned with white fury.

"Got it!" Mabel said, going into a martial-arts crouch.

"We got it together!" Wendy yelled. "Don't get in each other's—"

The creature launched itself into the air from ten feet away, its momentum carrying it crashing into Wendy. She fell backwards, instantly rolled and got her knees bent and her feet against its belly, and then kicked ferociously.

The werewolf flipped over her and hit the ground hard on its back. Mabel straddled its chest, the dagger at its throat. "Move and die!" she screamed.

The werewolf's left hand, or paw, whatever it was, bent backwards, bones clearly broken, but it tried to slash her with its right.

"No!" Dipper said, stamping on it hard. He felt more bones crunch beneath the sole of the hiking boot. He raised the axe, a blue-white shimmer running along the deadly silvered edge.

Wendy had rolled over to her knees and swung her axe. It quivered to a halt a quarter-inch from the werewolf's forehead. "So easy to kill you," she said. "But I won't. I won't."

She leaped to her feet and drew the axe back over her head. "The hell I won't!"

"Nnnnnooooo," the creature gargled from its only part-human throat.

Mabel, panting, pulled the blade about an inch across its throat. It bit into skin and blood trickled. "Give up. I want to kill you! And I don't like the feeling!"

"But we'll do it," Dipper said.

Five pounding heartbeats passed, and then, painfully, with vocal equipment no longer shaped for it, the creature fell still and rasped out three anguished howls.

"He gives up. He can't go back on that," Dipper said. "Mabel, get off him."

"It is a pleasure to slaughter such filth," she said in a voice not her own. Her kaiken glittered coldly. "One slash and the head is off!"

"Mabel," Dipper said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You're not Yamoto."

Grunting, she pushed herself off the werewolf, wiped the blade on the palm of her hand, and put it in its scabbard._ "Kuso!"_ she rasped.

Wendy moved the blade away. "Get on your knees!" she said.

"C-cannt . . . "

"On your belly, then! Now!"

The creature rolled over, whimpering and groaning. Now that it wasn't moving, that he wasn't moving, Dipper saw the dark slashes and the blood-matted hair, the twisted shape of buttocks and legs. It even still had the oddly pathetic stub of its tail.

"You understood what I told your Pack, didn't you?" Wendy said, the question coming out more like an angry curse.

"Yesss."

"Whose Valley is this now? Whose?"

"Yourrrsss."

"Say our names, dammit!"

"Ssssooooting starrr. Grrreat bearrr. Wind-warkerrrr."

"What are we? WHAT ARE WE?"

"Mmmasterrrss of the Varrey."

"All right," Wendy said. "Do you want to live? DO YOU WANT TO LIVE, you son of a bitch?"

_Strangely apt, _Dipper thought. He had the nightmare sense of being trapped in a surreal dream. Mabel thirsting for an animal's blood. Wendy cursing and ready to kill. Himself, not sorry that he had crushed bones in the thing's paw. Hand. Whatever. And this fierce thing sprawled at their feet, sniveling and moaning.

Too much. Too much.

Wendy raised her axe. "Better answer me! Do. You. Want. To. Live?"

"Yyyessss. Preasssse."

"It has trouble with sh- and l-sounds," Dipper said in a conversational tone.

"Like I give a damn," Wendy said. "All right. You change back into a wolf. You leave the Valley—go back to your own territory. Understand?"

"Yyyessss."

"Wait a minute," Mabel said. "Why did you attack that deer? Why?"

"It tired. Out of prace. We surprise it, wound it. Courd not chase by day. Courd not catch by night."

"We ought to kill you for that!" Mabel said. "Six of you and one poor wounded animal! Bad wolf! Bad! Bad!"

Dipper fought down a hysterical urge to tell her, "Wait, I'll get you a rolled-up newspaper." However, the creature visibly flinched under the lash of her anger and scorn.

"You go back home," Wendy said. "Never come back down into the Valley. We're master's here, and we will beat you and we will kill you next time—you and any you bring with you, even if it's the whole damn Pack! Let us see you take wolf form and then go! Before I change my mind!"

The three humans stepped away. As though it felt shamed, the monstrous thing got to all fours, strained, twisted, and yelped in pain. Dipper heard creaks as sinews altered, musculature flowed beneath the suddenly hairy skin, bones reshaped themselves.

In wolf-shape, it was wretched, trembling, unable to take its weight on its left front paw, limping on its hind legs. Its blood-matted tail tucked under its belly, its glowing eyes looked shamed and in a doggy way apologetic—_I know I did wrong, Master, please don't use the rolled-up newspaper!_

A surge of pity hit Dipper as the trembling beast turned and limped away, each step obviously an agony. Wounds made with silver weapons—or evidently by enchanted ones—would not heal quickly. Months of pain stretched ahead, and trouble. When the wolf had moved in its painful, halting way to the edge of the goggles' range, Dipper muttered, "The Pack may kill him. Or cast him out."

"I hope they do," Wendy said.

"Will he really leave?" Mabel asked. "Will he come at us again?"

Dipper shook his head. "If Ulva was right, no wolf can break the vow sealed with three howls."

"I don't trust him, though," Wendy said. "Bet you we have more trouble with him—not now, maybe, when he's hurt and weak, but someday."

In the distance, they heard the wolf howl in a warbling way. Dipper snatched the voice recorder from his belt and set it to record before the wavering sound faded and died.

"Why'd you do that?" Mabel asked.

"We'll get Ulva to translate," he told her. "I'd like to see if the thing was giving up—or swearing revenge."

"I'm cold," Wendy said. "Let's get back to the Shack and warm up."

Still on edge, still keeping a wary eye out, they trekked back to the Jeep and piled in. Mabel asked, "Can I drive—"

"Can you drive a straight stick?" Wendy asked.

"Sure! What's one of those?" Mabel said.

"Just get in back for now. Maybe I can give you a lesson or two before you guys have to go home."

* * *

When Wendy finally left the jouncing, rough overland route and turned back onto pavement, Mabel said, "I wonder which one that was."

"I don't know if werewolves have regular names," Dipper said.

"Not him, dumdum! I mean, did we save Dancer or Prancer or Donner—"

"Donder," Dipper corrected. "The original name was Donder, to go with Blitzen. Thunder and lightning."

"That's very very frightening," Wendy shot back, and they all three got the giggles. At that second it sounded absolutely hilarious. Only later did Dipper realize that it wasn't humor—it was sheer relief at coming out of the fight alive and unscathed. Laughter isn't always about something funny.

When he got his breath back, he said, "Mabel, the names of the reindeer—they're made-up. They were just in the poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas.' And Clement Moore, the poet, specified eight reindeer. That was the—"

"Not Rudolph," Mabel said.

"Not—huh? Oh, no, he was an advertising image back in the 1940s, I think. Some department store. And one of the ad-men wrote a poem about him and somebody wrote music to turn it into a song. Rudolph was a commercial for the store, that's all."

"Aw."

"C'mon, Mabes," Wendy said, her voice teasing. "Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know."

"Huh?" Mabel asked. "Wendy, you can't—"

Dipper shook his head. "Not Wendy, Lucy. That Charlie Brown special, you know."

"Oh, yeah," Mabel said. "I know Wendy doesn't believe that."

"Not really," Wendy said. "Just sometimes I have to remind myself, that's all."

As they neared town, Dipper asked, "You OK back there, Mabel? You stopped talking. Gone to sleep?"

"No," Mabel said softly. "I—you know, back there—I've never intentionally hurt an animal in my life. Well, I punched out a bird once, but that was by accident. But standing over that werewolf—I was willing to kill him. I was wanting to kill him! I was _waiting _to kill him!"

"That's Mr. Doolittle from your play, right?" Dipper asked.

"Uh—yes. Yes, it is. But that's how I felt! About an animal! Who was part human! A humanimal! I don't like the way that I was feeling."

Wendy said, "End of the day, we didn't kill him. We gave him a second chance, and I think we may regret that later. Me, I would've just as soon ended it, except—well, heck, Christmas, I guess."

They had taken off their gloves, and Dipper put his arm beneath Wendy's hair and his palm against her neck, engaging their touch-telepathy. –_You did it for Mabel, didn't you?_

_Sort of, Dip. Partly for me, too. And I think mostly for you._

–_I couldn't have blamed you if you had chopped his head off._

_I would've blamed myself, though. And maybe he'll be better with a second chance. Christmas is kinda about second chances, right?_

–_I guess. I've got a lot to think about, too._

'_S late. When we get back to the Shack I'm goin' straight to bed._

–_Alone?_

_No. Not tonight. Tonight I need to be held and cuddled. I need to feel a little bit of love to put out the fire of hate I was feeling back there._

–_I'm here for you._

* * *

They got up late the next morning and did not run. At breakfast, Wendy asked, "You sleep OK, Mabes?"

She looked droopy-eyed. "All right, I guess." She frowned. "I kept having goofy dreams about monsters and—cherry blossoms? Weird."

Wendy laughed. "That's old Yamoto. You'll have those for a couple nights. He might even show up in the Shack—you did put the kaiken away, didn't you?"

"Yeah, back in the Museum. You mean he'll come back as a ghost?"

"He's, like, always a ghost, Mabel," Wendy said. "He might even hit on you. Long time back, the year I started to work here, he appeared and asked me if I'd consider dating a ghost. If he shows up in your dreams or for real, just tell him real pleasantly that if he does it again, you'll exorcize him. He'll let you alone."

"So he's around all the time?" Mabel asked.

"I don't think so. I think most of the time he's off in some sort of Samurai paradise, Lotus Land or whatever. But somebody touches that dagger, it summons him."

"I'll leave it alone," Mabel said. "I think that's what made me so bloodthirsty."

"Occupational hazard of being a Samurai," Dipper said. "I'm going down to talk to Ford this morning," he announced as he picked up his plate and cup. "Want to come with me?"

Wendy eyed Mabel. "I think we'll have some girl time," she said. "Maybe see if Pacifica's back, or Candy. Grenda's off in Europe, 'cause she and Marius are planning their wedding next summer."

"I'd like that," Mabel said.

Knowing his sister would be among supportive friends, Dipper helped wash and dry and then walked down the hill, past Stan's house—he and Sheila were away, off in Atlantic City—and to Ford's.

* * *

**From the Journals of Dipper Pines: **_Tuesday, December 27, 2016—Remember, this is all about the werewolf and the phantom reindeer. Reminder to self: Write out the full story of that later._

_Grunkle Ford and I had a long talk this morning, and though he said it was philosophical and he wasn't used to that, he listened and we talked about reality and illusion and belief._

_I told him everything—he at first was upset that I hadn't called on him, but I tried to explain: "Grunkle Ford, I'm almost an adult now. I—well, I wanted to try on my own, you know? And we did OK."_

_He accepted that at last. Then I confessed, "It was a flying reindeer! Something that I know is just fantasy. I feel so—well, like a little kid, you know? Santa's not real!"_

"_Some philosophies," Grunkle Ford told me, "hold that strong belief, faith, if you will, can give shape and form to thoughts and wishes. There are myths of gods who once walked the earth, but faded when their followers lost faith in them. Belief fed them and made them real, and with it gone—they became insubstantial. Who's to say?"_

"_I couldn't NOT believe in it," I told him. "Mabel was pleading with us, and I could dimly see it, and then I could feel it. When I said I believed—and I'm not sure I really did!—and when Wendy said she did, it recovered and—and flew away. How is that even possible?"_

"_Well," Ford said thoughtfully, "the belief of children is strong at Christmas time. It falters immediately afterward. Maybe this injured, um, avatar of belief was fading. It needed to be re-charged, and you three did that. It got away from the werewolves and—maybe—escaped back safely to its own realm."_

"_I don't think I can ever really accept it as real," I said. "But—well—at the moment I believed. I didn't feel it emotionally, but—is belief a matter of forcing yourself?"_

"_We are beyond my area of expertise," Ford said. "However—remember that first summer we met? When we went to the spacecraft and the guard robot tried to take me away, and you brought it down and the others showed up?"_

"_Oh, yeah," I said. That was terrifying. We crashed, Grunkle Ford was injured, and then two more of these metal orbs, armed with, I don't know, space cannons, showed up and threatened to kill us._

"_You stood up to them. You controlled your fear so they couldn't detect it, and they self-destructed, remember? That was an act of will, Mason. I suspect that believing can be an act of will, too."_

"_I'll have to think about that," I told him._

_He put his big hand on my shoulder. "I would expect nothing less of you," he said._

_We were all tired. Wendy and Mabel were out with Pacifica and Candy all afternoon, and I stretched out on the sofa and napped while they were gone._

_I dreamed about Santa Claus. Christmas and all, I guess, and me thinking I'd seen an impossible reindeer. Anyway, he told me I was too heavy for his lap, but what could he give me as thanks? I told him I had Wendy, and that was all I needed or wanted. But I said, "Do something nice for Grunkle Stan." I don't know why, except I'm missing him right now. He and Sheila will barely get back to Gravity Falls a day before Mabel and I have to leave next Sunday._

_Oh, and I said, "Something for Mabel and Wendy would be nice, too."_

_He did that ho-ho-ho laugh and told me I had the right spirit._

_At that moment, I woke up because Candy and Paz had me pinned down on the couch and Wendy was dangling a spring of mistletoe above my, um, well, above me, and they were all three laughing and pretending to try to kiss me . . . _

_Maybe I'd better switch to a cipher._


	11. Chapter 11

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 27-29, 2016)**

* * *

**11**

Dipper had never roughhoused with three pretty girls before—especially not with a giggly Mabel dancing around and operating a video camera and getting everything recorded—but he couldn't exactly say he found it a _bad_ encounter. For him, the whole wrestling match had a downside in that it was an, well, um, a, I mean, a _rousing _experience.

The giggly girls meant it as a joke, though, and in the end, nothing came off. So to speak. Oh, they pretended they were going to unfasten his belt, but Wendy called it off around that point. "Sorry, dude," she said, kissing him for real while Paz and Candy still pinned him, his shoulders on the sofa and his legs hooked over the back cushion. "You just looked so innocent an' sweet. Mabel suggested—"

"I guessed that," Dipper said. They let go of him, and with some difficulty he turned right-side-up again and tugged his tee shirt down over his bare stomach. "Mabel, remember the trouble you got us into with Mom. Erase that video. Now!"

But first the four girls insisted they had to view it. Dipper chose to go upstairs to the window seat and try to read a book while ignoring the sounds drifting up from below: raucous titters and exclamations of "Oh, wow!" "Hey I am thinking we totally should've done it!" and "My Brobro—such a modest guy!"

When it subsided, he came downstairs. "All right, you've all had your fun. Now let me see you erase it."

Mabel grumbled a little, but she let him delete it. Afterward, she vetoed the idea of a sleepover—"I am way too sleepy, and my doctor—I mean my brother—has told me to lay off the Mabel Juice. A sleepover's no fun if you _sleep_! Let's plan one for Friday night, OK?"

As the other girls piled out to go to town and window-shop, Wendy came and sat next to Dipper on the sofa. "Sorry, man," she said. "I completely let Mabel talk me into something dumb."

Dipper shrugged. "I've been there before. And got the tee-shirt. But—well, you know, you wouldn't like it if I told a couple of boys to do that to you while I made a video."

Sounding contrite, she said, "Yeah, it was wrong of me. Really, man, never again. And I am sorry." She ruffled his hair fondly. "So—friends?"

"Lovers," he said, putting his arms around her.

She kissed him for that.

Still later that afternoon, Mabel and Teek drove off to visit Waddles and Widdles—and Gomper and Geepers, his son (the dwarf mountain-sheep mom had decided her career came first and as soon as the kid was weaned, she took off).

Wendy said, "I'm still feeling guilty. I mean, I'm old enough to know better. I guess not having many friends when I was their age—let me make it up to you, Dip. Please." proposed that she return all the foot-rubs that Dipper had given her by giving him a back rub.

That turned into his lying face-down on his bed, an old oilcloth tablecloth spread over it and a worn sheet ready for the rag-bin over that, and Wendy kneeling astride him and applying a peppermint-scented oil to his shoulders and back and really rubbing it in. "You like this?" she asked, kneading his neck.

_-You can't read my feelings? Yeah, I know you can. So you can guess already, and if I turned over, you'd know for sure how much I love it._

She laughed. And went on with the loving massage. "Mm, this oil was probably a mistake, man. Just smelling it's got me kinda goin'. I do love peppermint. I might just eat you!"

"Umm—I think I'm rubbed down enough," he said.

So she toweled him off, they tossed the oil-stained sheet and the oilcloth to the floor, and he lay shirtless and she lay next to him (wearing her bra and jeans, if you really want to know), and they kissed and used their mental hookup to send each other exciting thoughts and then excited feelings, and before long they were lying on their backs, holding hands, breathing easily and deeply and murmuring, "Wow, that was _something!"_

Yet their vow held. After all, what was another nine months? Not all that long until the wedding. Admittedly, a lot can happen in a nine-month period. A whole lot.

But in this case, it wasn't going to.

* * *

The weather continued to warm up. Wednesday's forecast called for plenty of sun, a wind from the southwest at two to five miles an hour, and a high peaking at 57. "You guys game?" Wendy asked that morning.

"Yes!" Mabel said, spraying Deranged Bear Oaty Crisps across the breakfast table. She wiped her mouth. "What for?"

"Hot-tubbing, dude," Wendy said, using a napkin to wipe fragments of cereal from her forearm. "See if Teek wants to go."

"Teek will want to go if I tell him he wants to go," countered Mabel.

Dipper glanced at Wendy. "I dunno what's up with her. Ever since she slapped around a wolfman, Mabel's been a little too full of herself."

"Me?" Mabel asked in shocked innocence. "That's un-possible!"

Around ten that morning, Mabel called Teek. He said he would come along that afternoon—but asked the question that Mabel had hoped to finesse: "We're going to wear swimwear, right?"

"Ummm . . . . " Mabel said. Then she sighed. "Yeah, if that would make you more comfortable. But if you decide not to—"

"I'll be over in an hour," Teek said.

Mabel went to the parking lot, where Wendy and Dipper were washing the Jeep—not comfortable in forty-nine-degree weather, but they thought they owed that to Soos. They had finished sudsing and rinsing and now were drying and buffing with a couple of microfiber towels.

"Guys," Mabel said standing with her arms crossed, "Teek wants to wear swim trunks."

"Boo!" Wendy said as she vigorously polished the Jeep roof. "I wanted to see what he was packing!"

"Not me," Dipper said from the hood. "Wait, what?"

"Just comparison shoppin', man," Wendy said with a wicked grin. "I'm surprised. I thought Teek would've liked to see Mabes in the buff."

"He already has," Mabel replied smugly. "Back in the summer when I came out of that invisibility spell during the fireworks."

"Yeah, but that was at night, with a lot of distractions all around," Wendy pointed out. "Hard to concentrate. Nothin' like a bright sunny day to make you see things clearly!"

"I think swimsuits are a good idea," Dipper said. "I've seen Mabel in her underwear and even less from time to time, and she reminds me of a baseball team."

"Wha-a-at?" Mabel asked. "You're crazy! How is my personal loveliness like a baseball team?"

"'Cause you're bad news bare," Dipper said. "Yikes! Mabel, that's c-cold! P-put d-down the hose!"

"No way hose, eh?" Mabel asked with gleeful spite, spritzing him again. "Take that!"

Mabel's one-sided water fight ended with all three of them soaking wet and shivering, until they ran inside and changed into warmer, drier clothes—Dipper and Wendy even changed together in the same room, because at this stage of their relationship it didn't seem to matter all that much.

Outside on the landing, Mabel rattled the locked doorknob and called, "No fair hangin' Wendy's shirt so it covers the keyhole!"

* * *

Though the temperature reached the fifties early that afternoon, the slight wind was sort of chilly. Dipper and Wendy made a campfire at the mouth of the shallow cave, Dipper and Teek put on trunks while the girls held up the beach towel (Mabel peeked), and then, shivering a little, Dipper and Teek held up the towel for Wendy and Mabel to change and did not peek. The girls changed fast—they had worn swim togs under their street clothes—and then hopped into the hot water.

Dipper laid two axes down close to hand—they could grab them without getting out of the hot pool—and then he and Teek joined the girls, Dipper and Wendy sitting across from Mabel and Teek. "This is great!" Mabel said. She was wearing a yellow two-piece, just a tad more modest than an actual bikini. "Mm, I love this! I could see a road bulldozed out to here and the tram running special trips from the Shack—'Take a dip in the Fountain of Health! Feel Revived! Revitalized! Just ten—twenty—no, a hundred bucks a head!'"

Wendy made a face. "No, don't tell Stan that. Please don't do that! It would break my heart if our secret place got turned into a tourist attraction."

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, "you're wearing two silver necklaces."

"Huh? Oh, I forgot!" Mabel took one off, told Teek, "Turn around," and fastened it around his neck.

"What's this for?" Teek asked.

"Scare away werewolves," Mabel said. "That's also why Dipper and Wendy brought an axe apiece. But I don't think the fuzzy guys would dare tangle with us in broad daylight. This water feels so good, doesn't it?" She laced her arm through Teek's and slipped down so her chin was just above surface.

Teek, with a glance toward Dipper, who just grinned, slipped down next to her. He looked momentarily startled.

_What was that? _Wendy silently, and telepathically, asked Dipper.

—_She probably just pinched his butt. I hope!_

He lay back beside Wendy, wearing her red one-piece, or maybe a new one—must be, Dipper thought, because—

_Yeah, dude, I'm bigger in the bust now than I was at fifteen. Bought this one last summer. You like?_

—_Love it!_

They soaked for the best part of an hour until they started to get all pruny on fingers and toes, and then got out and very rapidly scrambled into dry clothes. They were soon warm and dry because they had to hike for close to another hour before reaching Wendy's car, parked near the piers of an old ruined covered bridge.

"At least nothing bothered us," Dipper said as Wendy did a three-point back-and-turn.

She didn't look at him—she was concentrating on the steering wheel—but said, "Yep. Where werewolves are concerned, it's best not to hear from them."

Wendy and Dipper dropped Mabel and Teek off at the Shack—"Behave yourselves, now!" Wendy warned—and then drove over to the Gleefuls' house, where they'd arranged a meeting. By then it was past four. Ulva and Gideon were waiting for them. Bud was still at the used-car lot, and Mrs. Gleeful was off doing after-Christmas bargain hunting.

Dipper took out the voice recorder and played the short clip of yodeling wolf-talk he'd recorded, and Ulva listened, her forehead furrowed in thought.

"Starts in middle of him saying 'strong in defeat,'" she told them. "Then he says 'we meet again some night. After I heal and plan.' That is all."

"Oh, man," Dipper said. "All I need is another mortal enemy!"

"One thing more," Ulva said. "Sounds—hurt bad. And I think I know voice. Slash, I guess, is English word. Or Rip. Something like that. One of strong young wolves, true Lycan, only rare—rarely?—take human form. Too young to be Pack leader of whole People. Just have a—Gideon, what is word? Little small group, look for trouble?"

"Gang, honey," Gideon said.

"Gang, yes. Slash-Rip has maybe small gang to follow him. But he is still danger. Sound . . . very hurt. Weak. Angry. You hurt him?"

"With silver," Dipper said.

"Ah-ee," Ulva whimpered. "Will take much long to heal. Not right way to say. Will take . . . very long time to heal. Maybe year. And gang may not follow him, not after loss. You safe for now. Maybe for always, if they don't any longer follow him."

Dipper thanked them. As he and Wendy were leaving, Ulva asked in almost a whisper, "Did he fight well?"

"Not bravely. He led five others against the three of us," Dipper said. "They were chasing a hurt, helpless deer. He wanted the others to kill it, and us."

"You fought all six?"'

"We fought 'em and wounded 'em and scattered them all," Wendy said. "Old Rip last of all. Mabel was right on the edge of cutting his head off. We made a bargain—he'd stay out of the Valley, we wouldn't kill him."

Ulva sighed. "Might not keep his promise," she said. "His kind—they think of humans as not-equal, you know? Like, um, mices? Mice? How do you say, a—a pest, yes? Just a pest to be killed. Be careful. Be always careful."

"We plan to," Dipper said.

And one thing more—as she was closing the door, Ulva said in an angry tone, "Glad that you hurt him! Bad Pack leader. Evil. Evil. Maybe should die."

As they drove back to the Shack, Wendy said, "Wonder how Ulva really feels."

Dipper shrugged. "I . . . don't think she likes that guy much."

And there they left it.

* * *

Thursday passed too quickly. Teek and Mabel went on a probably chilly picnic. Dipper and Wendy, to make up for their laziness, went for an extra-long run all the way past Moon Trap Pond, through the strip of woods, down around an old abandoned sawmill, and then back by way of a side road—nearly a seven-mile run, though they took it at somewhat less than an all-out pace.

"The week's flying by," Dipper said to Wendy as they walked uphill to the Shack. "I wish it didn't have to end."

"Yeah, sucks that you guys just squeezed out one week this year. Now I have to look ahead to the summer."

"Hey," Dipper said, "I meant to ask you—uh, are you planning to go to the Piedmont High Senior Prom with anybody?"

"When is it?" she asked with a broad smile.

"Saturday, April first," he said. "That's not a joke, by the way. I'll pay for your airline ticket, round-trip."

"Mm, might be washing my hair," she said. Then he looked so stricken that she relented and grabbed him and pulled him in tight for a deep kiss. "Of course I'll go with you, fiancé! Shack will be open on the weekends then, but Soos will give me time off. Fly down Friday, fly back Sunday? Yes, Dip, yes. I like saying yes to you. I don't think I could ever tell you no."

He kissed her. "Careful," he warned her. "I'm gonna remember that!"


	12. Chapter 12

**Home for Christmas**

**(December 30, 2016-January 1, 2017)**

* * *

**12**

As much as the twins cherished the moments, they kept slipping into the past. During their last couple of days in Gravity Falls, they tried to make the most of them.

On Friday evening, Mabel had her sleepover. Paz and Candy came over, and Grenda even face-timed for a while—though, as she reminded them, at ten p.m. in Gravity Falls, it was already seven the next morning in Austria. Mabel immediately began to hatch a plan for Grenda to call her with the results of horse races in California that were still hours away from being run—

Pacifica spent a quarter of an hour explaining why that wouldn't work before realizing Mabel was putting them on. That started the epic pillow fight.

As it raged, Wendy slipped away to spend time with Dipper. They spent a cozy evening and, unlike the girls upstairs, actually got some sleep.

Early the next morning, New Year's Eve, Wendy and Dipper left Candy, Pacifica, and Mabel asleep and drove to Portland in Stan's '65 El Diablo to pick up Stan and Sheila. It was a tribute to Stan's esteem for Wendy that he allowed her to drive it at all. But then she had repaired it several times, for free, and had kept its engine running smooth, so he owed her. Letting her drive it was cheaper than actually paying her.

Wendy timed the drive beautifully. They parked in a short-term slot fifteen minutes before Stan and Sheila's flight from Newark was due to land, stood at baggage claim by the time it touched down, and about twenty minutes after that, Stan and Sheila showed up, both a little red-eyed from the flight. Sheila hugged both Dipper and Wendy, and Stan cheerfully said, "There better not be any new dents in my car!"

They each rolled a carry-on, and Dipper reclaimed their one checked suitcase. "How was your luck at the tables, Stan?" Wendy asked.

Stan shrugged. In a morose tone, he said, "Eh, you win some, you lose some." Then he grinned ear-to-ear. "And on the last day, you win back what you lost and even more! Ha!"

He approved of their not having to pay more than three bucks for parking ("Cover it, Dip, I'll pay you back sometime"), and he asked Wendy to drive them back to Gravity Falls. "You sure?" she asked.

"Yeah, me and Sheila are pooped from getting' up so early, so we'll sit in the back seat and smooch," he said.

"I'm game," Sheila said.

Dipper told them a little about the fight with the werewolves—not all of it, just enough to say that a few of the creatures had come marauding into the Valley after prey and that he, Mabel, and Wendy had sent them all back home. "Good for you," Stan said. "I got nothing against werewolves, mind, if they don't come onto my front yard!"

They arrived in Gravity Falls about half-past noon, and Dipper helped carry the big bag into the house. "Everything looks to be in one piece," Stan said. "Not that I expected different, but Sheila and me always worry on a trip. Did I leave the stove on, or the water running, or will there be Gnomes squattin' in the attic when we get home?"

"Oh," Dipper said. "Almost forgot. I went to the post office yesterday and Mr. Harriman gave me the mail you had them save. It's all on the foyer table."

Stan sat in his recliner and raised the leg rest while kicking off his loafers. "Ahh, do me a favor and bring it, would ya?"

Wendy and Sheila were in the kitchen as Dipper passed. "Hey, Dip!" Wendy called. "Makin' sandwiches. Reuben on light rye OK?"

On the post-office run, they had laid in some supplies for Stan and Sheila, too. "Sounds good, thanks!" Dipper said. He took the stack of mail and magazines back to Stan and sat on the sofa as Stan flicked through it. "_Gold Investor. US Traveler, _that's Sheila's. Couple Christmas cards. . . huh, a Hanukkah card from Rabbi Lowenstein! He's a nice guy, I'll have to send him a thank-you note. Junk . . . junk . . . junk . . . ." He flicked several envelopes aside.

Dipper fielded one. "Hey, wait. This looks official, Grunkle Stan!"

"Lemme see." Stan held up a heavy-looking envelope and read, "'White House, Washington, DC.' Forget that. I don't contribute to politics, Dip."

"I had to sign for that one when I picked everything up," Dipper said. "At least open it."

"OK, OK." Stan ripped the envelope open, drew out a heavy cream-colored document and unfolded it, muttering as he read: "'The White House, Washington, DC. Memorandum Granting—' huh?" He swallowed hard. "'Granting Pardon to Stanley F. Pines of Gravity Falls, Oregon—' Sweet Sally! '. . .pardoned for all past or present violations . . . not subject to . . . ' Oh, my God!"

"Good news?" Dipper asked.

Sheila came in with a tray of sandwiches, followed by Wendy, carrying a tray of soft drinks. "What is it?" she asked.

Stan said, "And here's his signature! It's not a photocopy, it's in real ink! The President! That means—no statute of limitations to worry about! I can sell the pirate loot that I got when Ford and me—Sheila, baby, we're rich! Er!"

"What are you talking about?" Sheila asked, setting the sandwiches on the coffee table and perching on the arm of his recliner.

Stan showed her the letter. "Somebody put my name up, and the Prez musta not looked too close into things, 'cause as part of his annual pardons, he named me! No more open warrants! We can go to any state we want, sweetie! The Feds can't nail me for tax fraud! Uh, not that there's anything in it, but you know, complicated business dealings, they might have got the wrong idea. . . . Most of all, I got a big chest of gold and jewels stashed away that I can sell on the open market now! Man, this is—well, it's like a big old Christmas present, doll!"

Dipper remembered his dream. "Maybe," he said mildly, "Santa gave it to you."

"Haw!" Stan laughed. "Get him, with the Santa and the sleigh and the reindeer! Yeah, Dip, it's nearly enough to make me a believer! Santa, he says."

They ate—except Stan was nearly too excited to get through his sandwich—and then Wendy and Dipper quietly stole away and went up to the Shack.

"You think maybe Santa is kinda—real?" Dipper asked her.

"Dunno, man," she said. "But the letter is, and that flying reindeer was at least kinda-sorta real!"

* * *

Mabel came floating in an hour later. "I am happy," she told them. "I am officially a happy girl. Happy Mabel, that's me. Ask me why."

Dipper said, "OK, Sis, why—"

"YOU HAVE TO ASK?" Mabel yelled, waving her arms. "Teek can come down for the Prom! I got a date for Senior Prom! I'm probably the first one in our class! All the girls at school are gonna go nuts over Teek! He's not gonna wear his glasses, even though it's allergy season, and have you noticed how he's got that little dimple in his chin? And those eyes of his? The other Senior girls are gonna die!"

"Cool!" Wendy said. "Hey, Dipper, he and I can fly down together."

"Oh, right, transportation," Mabel said, sounding apprehensive. "Dipper, do we have enough in savings—?"

"What, to fly him down? That would cost, I guess, around three hundred round-trip. Unless he went first-class. That'd be a thousand or so," Dipper said.

"You don't have to spend that much on me, though," Wendy said.

"Well, we can probably swing it," Dipper said. "Or maybe Grunkle Stan will lend Mabel the money. He just came into some moolah, as he says."

Mabel tossed herself into an armchair. "Yeah, I know, Atlantic City casinos, right? But 'lend' sounds so unpleasant. Like he'll want me to pay it back." She squirmed a little.

"That's kind of how a loan works," Dipper said. "What's the matter?"

"Something's sticking me," she said, twisting in the seat and feeling along the side of the cushion. She pulled a card from where it had been stuck between arm and cushion. "Huh. Soos must've lost this."

Dipper craned but couldn't make out what she was holding, except it was bigger than a postcard. "What is it?"

She showed him. It was a scratch-off lottery ticket—_Santa's Christmas Bag,_ the game was called. It was a one-dollar ticket and the card said, "Win up to $2500."

Dipper got a tingly feeling. "I—think that's probably yours," he told Mabel.

She rolled her eyes. "Me? Even if I won something, I can't cash it in! You got to be eighteen. Here you go, Wendy, you're old enough. Take a chance!"

"Mabel," Dipper said, "I have a feeling about this. You and I both have sat in that chair. Why didn't we find that before today?"

"'Cause my butt's more sensitive than yours?" Mabel asked. "Wait, wait, you don't think this belongs to Soos or Grunkle Stan?"

"Never saw Soos buy a lottery ticket," Wendy said.

Dipper added, "And Grunkle Stan won't play the lottery. He said he learned long ago only to gamble on things he can touch—cards or dice, he means." He reached for Wendy's hand. "I think that's really a gift to you, Mabel. From Santa."

Wendy squeezed his hand and thought to him, _Oh, man, wouldn't that be wild! If it happens, I swear I'm gonna send a letter to the North Pole next year!_

"Santa, yeah, right. Suddenly you're a believer?" Mabel asked, cackling. "Oh, man. One little flying reindeer, and you lose it!"

Wendy got up and retrieved a quarter from the unused ashtray where Soos and Melody usually dropped loose change. "I'm just borrowing this," she said. "Here you go, Mabes. Take a chance."

"OK, how do you do this?" she asked, accepting the quarter.

Dipper gave her a hard-bound book and pointed to the directions printed on the lottery ticket. "It says right here—scratch off each ornament. If the amount under three of them is a match, you win that much money."

"Yeah, yeah, fat chance," Mabel said. "Here we go. Not bad, $2500. Five ornaments to go. . . blah, no match, it says _free ticket_. Ten bucks, like that would help. Hey, another $2500! If one of the last two ornaments matches—gah, I can't take the suspense! My hands are shaking! Wendy, you scratch off the last two, please!"

"OK, give it here," Wendy said. She started from the right side, last one. "Sorry, Mabes. This one's for fifty dollars, no match. Down to this one. Dipper-?"

"No," Dipper said. "I'd only jinx it. This is for you and Mabel. You do it."

"Don't get your hopes up, Mabes," Wendy murmured. But then she screeched, "No flippin' way! Two thousand five hundred!" She showed the ticket to Mabel.

"We won, we won!" Mabel said. "Wendy! Oh, my gosh, I'm so—OK, you take it and cash it in! And then half buys you a first-class ticket, and use whatever's left to get a real nice prom dress—my heart's beating so fast! Um, and you can get Teek a first-class as well, and, um—Wendy, when you come to Piedmont, will you please drive Teek to the airport? To make sure he doesn't miss the flight? Oh, my God! I—" she snatched the ticket and kissed the jolly sketch of Santa. "Thank you, Mr. Claus!"

And in his mind, Dipper echoed that thanks.

* * *

Sunday was the first day of 2017.

On the last day of August of that year, Dipper and Mabel would be eighteen.

And Dipper and Wendy—

_Don't dream about it yet, _he told himself. _You didn't jinx the ticket. Don't jinx this!_

He and Wendy spent a long time that morning saying goodbye. So did Teek and Mabel. But the day was still in infancy, the clock showing seven-thirty, when Dipper said, "Well, we'd better go. It's a long drive home."

"I love you, Dipper Pines," Wendy said. She plopped the trapper's hat on his head. "Dude, I—I'll see you at your prom. And then later that same month, we get to go to Burbank to see that ghost hunter show taping. Oh, my God, I'm gonna miss you so much!"

"I'll miss you, Magic Girl," Dipper said. "And I love you, too. But—well, hold on. It's less than a year now."

"Yeah. That'll keep me going, but I can hardly wait."

"Stay safe," he told her. "Seriously. If there's any hint of trouble, any at all—call Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan. And then call me!"

"Hey, I'll take care of business," she said.

They walked into the gift shop, where Mabel was kissing Teek. "Gotta go, Sis," Dipper said.

"Aw."

Teek hugged her. "It's not so long until April."

"Seems like forever to me." She kissed his cheek. "You'll go check on Waddles and Widdles every other week, OK?"

"I promise," Teek said.

"Be good," she murmured.

"I will. You, too."

She laughed. "That's not part of the deal!"

They crunched over frosted grass to the parking lot. It looked like a sunny day, probably warming up as it went on. And anyway, they were headed south to sunny California.

Mabel took the first turn at the wheel. "I get so tired of leaving this place," she said softly as she fastened her seatbelt.

"I know," Dipper agreed, snapping his own belt. "But one day—"

"Yeah," Mabel said. "One day."

They didn't say anything more. They didn't need to say it. Mabel started Helen Wheels, they waved one last goodbye to Teek and to Wendy, and they headed for home.

* * *

The End


End file.
